Stammering and Stuttering (HAKALANA in Hindi) have the same meaning - it is a speech disorder in which the person repeats or prolongs words, syllables or phrases. The person with a stutter (or stammer) may also stop during speech and make no sound for certain syllables. People who stutter often find that stress and fatigue make it harder for them to talk flowingly, as well as situations in which they become self-conscious about speaking, such as public speaking or teaching. Most people who stutter find that their problem eases if they are relaxed.
According to medical dictionary, to stammer is "To hesitate in speech, halt, repeat, and mispronounce, by reason of embarrassment, agitation, unfamiliarity with the topic, or as yet unidentified physiologic causes. To mispronounce or transpose certain consonants in speech."
Stammering is common when children are learning to speak. However, the majority of kids grow out of this stage of initial stuttering. For some, however, the problem persists and requires some kind of professional help, such as speech therapy, but that also don’t seem to help for many stammers.
It is important that parents do not add to a child's stress by drawing too much attention to the problem when they are trying to communicate verbally. The calmer a child feels the less acute the symptoms tend to Become.
Therapy
Controlling monitoring speech rate - this may involve practicing smooth, fluent speech at very slow speed, using short sentences and phrases. The person is taught to stretch vowels and consonants, while trying to secure continuous airflow. With practice the person gradually utters smooth speech at higher speed, and with longer sentences and phrases. Patients have higher long-term success rates if the sessions with the STAMMERING RELIEF CENTRE are followed up regularly - this helps prevent relapses
Breathing control - as the patient practices prolonged speech he/she also learns how to regulate breathing. Added to this is operant conditioning (controlling breathing, as well as phonation, and articulation (lips, jaw and tongue).
Stuttering modification therapy
The aim here is to modify the stuttering so that it is easier and requires less of an effort, rather than eliminating it. This therapy works on the principle that if anxiety exacerbates stuttering, using easier stuttering with less avoidance and fear will alleviate the stuttering. This further can be divided into 4 stages of my treatment which I observe, study and then cure my students accordingly.
Stage 1 (Identification) - the therapist and the patient identify the core behaviors, secondary behaviors, and feelings and attitudes that accompany the stuttering.
Stage 2 (Desensitization) - the patient freezes stuttering behavior in an attempt to reduce fear and anxiety - this involves confronting difficult sounds, words and situations (rather than avoiding them), and stuttering intentionally (voluntary stuttering).
Stage 3 (Modification) - the patient learns easy stuttering. He/she learns how to apply: a) 'cancellations' - stopping a dysfluency, pausing for a moment, and then repeating the word, b) 'pull-outs'- pulling out of a dysfluency into fluent speech, c) and 'preparatory sets' - anticipating words that cause stuttering and using 'easy stuttering' on those words.
Stage 4 (Stabilization) - the patient prepares practice assignments, makes preparatory sets and pull-outs automatic, and changes the way he/she sees himself/herself from being a stutterer to being a person who speaks fluently
Speech is formed by two means
(1) Breath
(2) Tongue
- - Vowel is formed by the breath
- - Pronunciation is formed by the tongue. Everything is bounded within its limitation, breath has its own limitation and the prolongation of speech depends upon the breath. If breath is used fully in speech and we try to speak more, there is possibility of stammering.
In fact it is not stammering but speech with pauses. It is due to shortened breath due to some reason during childhood. The breath is shortened due to the following reasons
- Physical weakness due to any kind of disease,
- Any kind of fear
- Imitating other
- Sudden shock to our Vocal Cords
The breath is shortened due to above mentioned reasons and the child starts speaking with pauses. The child doesn’t want to speak with pauses, but not knowing the reality, and he tries to speak more and more in his shortened breath. He becomes habitual of speaking more and more in his shortened breath, and starts stammering and ultimately aggravates his problem.