Holiday help request -22 year old stutterer needs support

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone!

I know most of us are busy with family (or more wrapping -or waiting

for the kids to go to sleep to start more wrapping -or to finish

wrapping...) but thought as a group we can start reaching out to help

Hardeep who is a 22 year old stutterer searching for a cure.

Hardeep I'm sure that as a group we'll be able to get you much more

help soon!

Happy Holidays everyone!

Re: PLZ HELP ME

HI PLZ HELP ME.I'M 22YEARS AND HVE PROBLEM OF STUTTERING FROM

10YEARS.I SCARE TO TALK WITH EVERYONE.PLZ HELP ME TO CURE THIS

I WANA JOIN YOUR GROUP.BUT HOW I JOIN?

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[Guest guest]

Hardeep I don't have much time today but searched quick and found

this very important message you may want to read regarding stuttering

from Dr. Bernard -thomas Hartman. The one thing I want you to take

away from this for now is that Dr. Bernard -thomas Hartman stuttered

all his life -and it didn't stop him from achieving a masters degree &

following his goals and dreams in life. While we help you search for

a cure for your stuttering -please don't let it stop you from

following your own goals and dreams:

From: " Hartman " <john.hartman@>

<help@>

Subject: An article from Dr. Hartman on stuttering/stammering

Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 12:45:28 +0000

Hello,

I'm writing on behalf of my father, Dr. Bernard-thomas Hartman, who

is suffering from a terminal illness and currently incapacitated. I

am including (what is certainly) his final article, which addresses

what he firmly believes to be the root cause of

stuttering/stammering, in the hope that someone with the strength

and perseverance might pick up this baton and run with it. My father

has spent his entire career studying this problem and treating

people who suffer from it, and it is his wish that I make available

to you his final thoughts on the subject.

Sincerely,

Hartman

Senior Developer

MI Pro AS

john.hartman@...

Tel: +47 64907561

Mob: +47 97592561

Fax: +47 64907576

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Straight Talk about Stuttering

(Psycho-social stress and speech dysfluency)

Bernard-thomas Hartman, Ph.D., FAAMD

I have stuttered, while speaking, and to varying degrees, most of my

adult life. Largely due to this fact, I've spent the bulk of my

career studying speech pathology and psychology. I'm now a retired

university professor, and would like to take this opportunity to

pass on to you something that I've learned about stuttering, and

articulate a particular approach to this problem which I believe

addresses the root cause of the problem for most, (if not all),

people who stutter.

I mentioned, previously, that I stutter when I speak. Early in my

life, what used to really nag me was that I spoke fluently - when I

was alone. When I started my university studies, I attended speech

therapy for my problem. I experienced, first hand, the main therapy

techniques and found them, as a `stutterer', inadequate in that they

didn't consistently aid me in my out-of-clinic experiences. I read,

extensively, about stuttering and through my own clinical

experiences, found that the methods that were applied would fail to

consistently improve the client's fluency outside the clinic. Or

that the effectiveness of the method would be eroded, over time, by

the client's loss of sensitivity to the application as they became

too accustomed to it.

The successes achieved in the clinic were decidedly inconsistent

with the experiences of the client outside of the clinic. This was

due to the fact that the adversities of the psycho-social stresses

of everyday life were not present in the clinic and could not be

readily, or at least convincingly, simulated.

As a young man, I used to memorize phrases, tracts of Shakespeare,

anything, and recite them in the mirror, thus, proving to myself

that I possessed this gift of fluent speech. But I learned that it

takes two to stutter. My fluency is wholly dependant on who I

perceive to be listening, and the gravity of the message that I want

to express.

It wasn't until I was taking my master's degree, and had gained

enough experience with other people who stutter that I became

convinced that the problem is psycho-social, and that this problem

may manifest itself as any of the `classic' stuttering behaviors

(tonic, clonic, etc.).

I'm an unrepentant fan of masking devices and have seen them to be a

considerable aid in eliciting fluent speech in my clients. But this

fluency is generally short-lived. This is, perhaps, as it should be.

Masking devices and other external stimuli should only be applied as

one would a crutch. Get the person back on their feet and

experiencing positive episodes of fluent speech.

Under varying levels of stress, everyone is predisposed to exhibit

stuttering speech behaviors. In other words, very stressful

situations will exceed anyone's threshold for maintaining fluent

speech. It's simply a matter of the level of stress versus the

individual's threshold for maintaining fluent speech.

People, whom we term to be `stutterers', have a lower stress

threshold than most people with regards to maintaining fluent

speech. The severity of a person's stuttering behaviors is

determined by the level of psycho-social stress that it takes to

disrupt the person's innate ability to speak fluently. And with each

episode of disfluency that the stutter experiences, this threshold

for maintaining fluent speech dips a little lower.

The reason for this, is that the stutterer begins to anticipate

failure and tweaks up the psycho-social stress related to the

encounter. In addition, the more time that the stutterer is allowed

to prepare for the encounter, (and anticipate failure), the more

this tension tends to grow. The constant conditioning of

anticipation of failure, and then the fruition of these anxieties

creates the basis for habitual stuttering behaviors.

So how do we break this cycle of anticipation of failure/realization

of failure…?

For me, that has always been the big question. How to reduce the

amount of psycho-social stress that a stutterer experiences when he

or she needs to say something to somebody. How can we diffuse the

tension of the moment for the stutterer?

As I mentioned previously, there are two parties involved in every

stuttering episode. The stutterer and the listener. In the event

that a stutterer needs to say something to someone they aren't

familiar with, (a waitress, prospective employer, policeman…) the

stutterer generally doesn't know how this listener is going to

respond to the realization that stuttering behavior is occurring in

the conversation, but will be anticipating any or all of the

negative responses that they have experienced previously.

As for the listener, most people have a streak of

goodness/understanding and are happy to do their `good deed for the

day' (for lack of a better term) when dealing with a handicapped

person. They generally respond to handicapped people with an extra

degree of patience and understanding. But what most people find

awkward or uncomfortable is to be thrust into the position where

they are made aware of a handicap as it manifests itself and they

are not prepared for the situation. And a stutterer, engaged in

speaking, is acutely aware of the listener's discomfort which only

adds to the problem.

The first thing, I believe, is to understand that a stutterer is a

person whose communication skills are handicapped. Like a mute or

person who is hard of hearing their communication skills are

impeded, but unlike the former examples, the handicap of stuttering

speech may be transitory if the psycho-stresses which cause the

condition can be relieved.

When I was a young therapist, I attempted to take on this problem

by `padding' my clients' social environment. I did this by taking

the time to meet with spouses, employers, teachers, etc. and counsel

them on how they might help relieve some of the tension that may

occur in their discourses with my client as well as ways that they

can encourage and empower them to communicate more frequently. The

important thing is to allow a potential listener the time to prepare

mentally for the role that they must assume in a conversation with a

person who has a communication handicap. I found this to be a

considerable aid to my therapy, but it eventually became

impracticable due to my client load.

I propose that the same effect may be achieved by openly

establishing with the listener, at the point of contact, that the

speaker suffers from a handicap that affects their speech. This can

be accomplished the same way that many people with other

communication difficulties inform a listener that they have a

problem – with a little card that is presented to the listener

before communication begins.

What this will do is de-fuse a great deal of the psycho-social

stress both for the stutterer and the listener. The stutterer can

relax considerably knowing that his/her `cover' is blown and that

the listener knows that the stutterer may experience difficulty in

communicating what they have to say. The listener has time to

prepare themselves for such an event and accept assuming the role of

a person attending to someone who is challenged in this way. To the

stutterer's advantage, most people are perfectly willing to display

their sense of humanity if forewarned. I believe that this is the

closest we can come to re-creating the dynamic available in a

clinical setting and reinforce the positive experiences that the

client receives from their therapist's clinical programs and

applications.

About the author:

Dr. Hartman, now retired, has served as the director of Speech and

Hearing pathology for several institutions during his career and

finally as professor and director of the Speech and Hearing

department (23 years) at F. Austin State University in

Texas. He is the author of `The Neuropsychology of Developmental

Stuttering' as well as other works. He now lives with his family in

Norway.

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