DIY Rule Number 02

When you start to talk, do it easily, gently and smoothly without forcing and prolong the first sounds of words you fear.

This most essential second rule suggests that you make a practice of stuttering easily and smoothly without forcing. It doesn’t call for you to stop stuttering, but to do it calmly, smoothly, sliding into the sounds of words with light, loose movements of your tongue, lips and jaw.

Also, this rule recommends that while talking easily, you prolong the first sound of any word you fear. And furthermore, that you make a point of prolonging the transition to the next sound or sounds of that word. This only refers to words you fear. It is not suggested here that you prolong all sounds of all words.

Some try to cope with their problem by trying to force words out at the same time as they close off the airway by squeezing the lips together, or pressing the tongue tightly against the lips together, or pressing the tongue tightly against the roof of the mouth. This makes no sense. You can’t pour water out of a corked bottle. Explore how easily you can stutter. Substitute easier ways of stuttering for your abnormal and frustrating habits. Stutter easily and calmly. You will feel the difference.

Don’t try to force trouble-free speech.

Don’t struggle when you talk. One of the ways you can tell if you are struggling is to monitor the amount of air pressure in your mouth. Try not to let it build up behind your lips or tongue. Try stuttering with the lips loose and the tongue not pressing tightly against your gums or palate. Why erect a blockade in your mouth behind which the air pressure increases greatly?

So, if you can comply with this rule and let yourself stutter easily, your severity will be lessened and so will the frequency of your stuttering. Although this may be difficult to carry out, we also recommend that when you are alone, you practice relaxation of your speech muscles. This calls for you to purposely tense yourself, particularly in the mouth area. And then release or reduce the tension so the difference can be felt.

It is suggested here that just on feared words, you prolong the first sound of such words and then prolong the transition to the next sound or sounds of the same feared words. This could mean taking as long as a second or more in making the gradual transition to the next sound.

By deliberately permitting yourself to prolong the initial sounds of many of the words you will be taking the psychological offensive.                                                                                                      –Murray

Action Points:

1. Practice talking smoothly and easily by reading aloud when alone for five to ten minutes a day. Read in a firm voice but keep your speech movements loose and relaxed. The idea is to get accustomed to using gentle, light control of your muscles of speech whether or not you stutter.

How to remember to remember the goals?

Put up a sign on your clock or mirror reading “remember to easystutter today,” /put a rubber band on your wrist so you will be continually reminded to direct your efforts toward talking easily while prolonging certain sounds of feared words. Make a list at night of the times during the day when you did or did not remember to talk as suggested.

When you are working on these rules, it is well to make a record of your progress in your workbook. First, try for one successful performance, then two in a row, three in a row, etc. until you have been able to collect five consecutive listeners to whom you have spoken slowly in an easy, smooth manner, whether or not you stutter.

Thomas Carlyle, the historian, to Ralph Waldo Emerson, said “a stammering man is never a worthless one…It is an excess of delicacy, excess of sensibility to the presence of his fellow-creature, that makes his stammer.”

DIY Rule Number 01

Make a habit of always talking slowly and deliberately whether you stutter or not.

It is easier to control a slow turtle than a fast rabbit, so slow down

The first rule calls for you to build a habit of talking slowly and deliberately, whether or not you stutter. This is recommended for a couple of reasons. First, it induces a manner of talking which is generally respected and admired, and secondly, it will result in a more varied, relaxed manner of speaking which is more responsive to therapy controlled procedures.

But it is mainly recommended because it will result in a more varied and relaxed manner of speaking which is more responsive to therapy procedures. To help reduce time pressure, it is also suggested that when you talk, you should often pause momentarily between phrases (or sentences). This will help lessen time pressure reactions.

It may also feel unnatural at first, but if you can adjust to this manner of talking, it will be beneficial. Most importantly, you will be under much less time pressure.

Action points:

1. It will help if you can spend at least five to ten minutes a day practicing when you are alone. You might read to yourself at a gradual slow rate in line with what you should use in conversation with others. Then possibly think of some subject about which you are informed and talk to yourself slowly and deliberately. When you are with others, always try to resist feelings of time pressure. At the moment you are expected to speak, you may sometimes have an almost panicky feeling of haste and urgency.2,3 You think that you are under “time pressure” with no time to lose, and you have a compulsive feeling that. you must speak quickly without taking the time for deliberate and relaxed expression. Do your best to resist this time pressure feeling. (Practice onset, always)

                                       Try stuttering slowly. Keep stuttering, but do it in slow motion. – Guitar

I think it is apt to say, you fear silence when embarrassed. It is suggested that when talking, you should experiment with occasionally pausing. When speaking a sentence, pause momentarily (very briefly) between words and between phrases. There is no hurry—probably you are not taking as much time as you think—take your time(tell me exactly this when I go for my next mock! Hehe). Unless there is a fire, people will wait to hear what you have to say. Let them wait. Pause! Take your time.

 

2. I know you haven’t started recording yourself. This is an opportune time to make a recording of the way you talk, particularly if you have not yet started speaking according to the recommendations of this first rule. Making a recording of the way you usually stutter will supply important information to be used in this program. Then later, take the time to listen to the recordings. Did you talk slowly and deliberately and thus set an example of the rate at which you should speak? Later you will use these recordings to study your speech.

 

 A basic feature of stuttering behaviour is that the stutterer is under time pressure to a great extent. The stutterer has to learn how to permit pauses in his speech, to risk the fear of silence, to give himself time to catch his breath to resist the time pressure.                                                           Sheehan

As a speech pathologist working with adult stutterers, I have found that the most important factors that determine progress are :

(1) that the stutterer have a goal that requires better speech]

(2) that he form the habit of working consistently and steadily to accomplish his purpose. —Gregory

When you become aware that the struggling behavior you call stuttering is something you are doing as you talk and not something that magically “happens to you,” you are in a very good position to begin to change what you are doing as you talk so you can talk more easily.                      —D. Williams

A Helpful Therapy Procedure

Because I am not an expert hence all DIY procedures that I’ll suggest will be “helpful therapy procedures” and will hope that they indeed are helpful. Let’s start doing our DIY project!

It involves talking in a very slow, smooth prolonged manner. In speaking slowly, it is suggested that you should take as long as a second or more to slide through the beginning or starting sound of all words or syllables.

At first, you may not like the way it sounds or feels, but remember that making a change almost always feels uncomfortable. Therefore, don’t talk this way all the time at first. Give yourself time to become accustomed to this new manner of speaking

Specifics

As you are aware, words are made up of sounds. In this procedure, you are asked to start the sounds of your words at an extremely slow, easy, smooth rate by gently and easily sliding extremely slowly through the first sound. This could mean taking as long as a second or more to slide through the beginning sounds that start your words. This is called “easy onset.”

Then stretch out and prolong all sounds as you voice them using continuous phonation. That means stretching out and prolonging practically every consonant and vowel sound, and sliding through and slowing the transition from one sound to the next sound.

To do this, start your vocal cords vibrating in a low, steady, very slow way as you begin to make the sounds of your words in this easy onset manner with light pressure in your tongue and lips, also known as “light contacts.” You can tell if your vocal cords are vibrating by putting your hand on your throat where you should feel the vibrations. This extremely slow, drawn-out manner of starting and prolonging all sounds will result in your having continuity of sound and airflow with no break in your voicing and no repetitions. To repeat, stretch out and prolong all your voicing of sounds, particularly the starting sounds. And prolong all transitions between all sounds (consonant and vowel) with light, easy contacts on the consonants. It is easy to stretch out and prolong vowel sounds, but you will need to practice stretching many of the consonant sounds.

Spend time when alone practicing how to increase the duration of consonant sounds as some of them such as t, d, p, b, etc. are “plosive” or “stopping sounds” but need to be spoken easily and slowly with light or loose contacts of the tongue and mouth

This smooth, slow, easy onset, drawn-out manner of talking should be used on non-feared words as well as feared words. In short, it should be done all the time you talk until you get the knack of it. Bind the sounds of your words together, hitch the beginning of one word to the tail of the preceding one.

To repeat, it is recommended that you use this smooth, prolonged way of talking when speaking to others after you have spent considerable time practicing it when alone. After using this manner of talking for some time, one may slowly and gradually increase the rate at which the words are started and spoken, unless trouble occurs. In this case, you should go back to the slower rate at which you had no difficulty

Schedule practice sessions to coincide with routine daily activities such as meal times, lunch breaks, or going to and from work or school. Unscheduled practice generally leads to little or no practice.

We will practice 12 rules, which will be described and provided to you one by one as we progress. in They will explain how to manage your stuttering by putting into effect certain basic remedial practices.

They outline how you can manage your difficulty by taking advantage of 2 approaches.

1^st, through modifying your feelings and attitudes about your stuttering by decreasing your speech fears and avoidance behaviours.

2^nd through modifying the irregular behaviours associated with your stuttering by using certain techniques which will change the form of your stuttering so you can speak without abnormality.

Intro to the DIY – Procedures

DIY“The stutterer must conquer his own problems. No one else can do it for him.” —Van Riper

You are like many of the 3 million stutterers in this country. Whatever you do you’ll have to be pretty much on your own with what ideas and resources you can use. ­

The first thing you must do is to admit to yourself that you need to change, that you really want to do something about the way you presently talk. This is tough but your commitment must be total; not even a small part of you must hold back. Don’t dwell longingly on your fluency in the magical belief that someday your speech blocks will disappear. There is no magic potion, no pink pill that will cure stuttering. Don’t sit around waiting for the right time for inspiration to come to you—you must go to it. You must see that the old solutions, the things you have done to help yourself over the years simply do not work. Ruts wear deep though, and you will find it difficult to change. Even though the way you presently talk is not particularly pleasant, it is familiar. It is the unknown from which we shrink. You must be willing to endure temporary discomfort, perhaps even agony, for the long range improvement you desire. No one is promising you a rose garden. Why not take the time and effort now for a lifetime of freedom from your tangled tongue? How can you do this? Break down the global problem of stuttering into its parts and then solve them one at a time. No one said it was easy. Shall we begin?                                                                                                                                    -Emerick

A valuable precondition for a successful therapy is the deep inner conviction of the stutterer in the manageability of his disorder, combined with a fighting spirit and a readiness to undergo hardships and deprivations if needed— hopelessness, pessimism and passivity being the deadliest foes to self-improvement.                                                                                                                                       -Freund

Experience may have caused you to be sceptical about any plan which claims to offer a solution. You may have tried different treatment ideas and been disappointed and disillusioned in the past.

There are no quick or magical answers to your stuttering. However acknowledge the truth “You are the only person on earth who can correct your stuttering.”

Don’t ever forget that even if you went to the most knowledgeable expert in the country, the correction of stuttering is a do-it-yourself project. Stuttering is your problem. The expert can tell you what to do and how to do it, but you are the one who has to do it. You are the only person on earth who can correct your stuttering.                                                                                                         -Starbuck

The stutterer must conquer his own problems—no one else can do the job for him.            -Van Riper

The importance of motivation cannot be exaggerated, and success or failure of therapy will depend on your commitment to follow through. It will not be easy, but it can be done

As per our discussion, you have the most difficulty when embarrassed and anticipating trouble. As one person expressed it, “if you can’t afford to stutter, you will.”

Whoa Facts: “On the whole people who stutter are highly intelligent and capable. Some famous people who stutter have been of above normal intelligence: Winston Churchill, Charles Darwin, Lewis Carroll, Jack Welch of General Electric, actor James Earl Jones, etc.”

There are factors that include information on subjects which can have a substantial influence on progress in therapy, such as:

• Feelings and Emotions: The statement can be made that stuttering is largely what the stutterer does trying not to stutter. As you tense in reaction to your stuttering and your feelings about stuttering, you are likely to stutter more. It is true that the experience of being blocked or not being able to say what you want to say without stuttering can be really frustrating.

When you have little fear, you have less tension and probably will not have as much difficulty. When your fear is strong, it builds up tension in your speech mechanism and you will stutter more frequently and severely.

• Tension and Relaxation:

“The more one stutters, the more he fears certain words and situations. The more he fears the more he stutters. The more he stutters the harder he struggles. The more he struggles, the more penalties he receives, and the greater becomes his fear.”                                                                            -Van Riper

If you didn’t try to force trouble free speech, you wouldn’t stutter as much or at least you would stutter more easily.

How can tension be reduced?

Learning to relax can always benefit your speech. More practical than general relaxation is the relaxation of specific muscles. When you can locate the place where the most tension is, it is possible for you to learn to relax those muscles during speech. This will be particularly helpful. These exercises involve only certain muscles, the ones you use to control your lips, your tongue, your mouth, your breath and to some extent your vocal cords. When you are relaxed and alone, you can practice purposely tensing and then relaxing those muscles. It will certainly be beneficial if you can relax these muscles during speech.

• Distractions: If there were some way to distract your mind from thoughts of fear so that you didn’t think about your stuttering, you would probably have no trouble.

“If he forgot he was a stutterer and simply went ahead on the assumption that he would have no difficulty, he would speak quite normally.”                                                                                     -Bloodstein

Try tricky procedures such as talking with sing-song inflection, metronome timing, talking while tapping a finger, swinging an arm, or stamping a foot, etc. Just thinking about how to use them when you anticipate trouble shifts your attention away from stuttering.

• Enlisting help from others:

Sometimes friends with the best of intentions offer unsolicited advice about what they have heard or think you should do to overcome your stuttering. Although such advice may be unwise and unwanted, we suggest that it should be accepted gracefully even though it is based on an inadequate understanding of the problem.

*cough* That’s me talking about me.*cough* Let’s move on to much important things. Ahem.

5) Your determination or motivation: Becoming less sensitive to your difficulty will make it easier for you to retain sufficient presence of mind to carry through on the recommended procedures.

I think you are well aware of the bitter truth.  However this is not where it ends. You will have to be assertive and believe in yourself. I say that you can succeed, and that the pay-off is far greater than the cost. But it will take dedication on your part to change your attitude toward your problem. Stuttering is a stubborn handicap and it will not give up easily. Therapy is a challenge. The decision is yours.

“Men who have achieved in this world have been guided by inspiration, by vision, by faith in themselves and by faith in the unknown.”                                                                                                                                     -Wedberg

Please note– Borrow Thinking and grow rich by Napoleon Hill from me after you’re done with this DIY project!

Let get back to the main business.

This DIY project will involve reducing your fear of having difficulty by disciplining yourself to face your fears and become less sensitive about your stuttering. And it will include:

(1) Analyzing your stuttering behavior,

(2) Eliminating unnecessary or abnormal things you may be doing,

(3) Taking positive action to control your blocks.

It is suggested that you comply with 12 common sense helpful DIY activities or ground rules to improve your speech. They will be gradually shared with you, one by one with practical implementation of each rule for maximum benefit. These ground rules are designed to supply you with practical ways of coping with your difficulty. By complying with the recommendations of these rewarding ground rules, you will be concentrating on reducing both the severity and abnormality of your difficulty and reducing the number of your stutterings. And when you carry out the provisions of these guidelines, you will be gradually laying the groundwork for gaining positive control of your speech.

These rules will urge you to

(1) Talk more deliberately,

(2) Stutter more easily and openly,

(3) Make no effort to hide your stuttering,

(4) Stop all avoidance practices,

(5) Eliminate your secondary symptoms,

(6) Maintain normal eye contact

Your stuttering is something you do, not something that happens to you. It is your behavior—not a condition. There are mistakes you can correct with a little self-study and courage.                       -Sheehan

One particularly important rule will call for you to make a detailed study of what your speech mechanism is doing incorrectly when you stutter. In other words, find out specifically what you are doing when you are having trouble.

You should look upon your stuttering as something you have learned to do—not as something which is wrong with you or which happens to you. You should try to substitute normal speech behavior of which you are basically capable for the undesirable ways of reacting which you have learned.

You’ve got to examine and analyze the act of speaking to see what errors you’re making. You must be making mistakes somewhere or you would be speaking fluently. What are you doing that make your speech come out as stuttering?                                                                                                                                            -Starbuck

For some stutterers simply identifying stuttering as they are being produced is sufficient to enable them to start modifying these very same instances of stuttering.                                                                         -Conture