Here at Speech Matters Speech Therapy we work with lots of people who stammer/stutter (PWS). We get all sorts of different people of different ages from different backgrounds coming to us for therapy. People often come with a very individual history around their stammer and especially around speech therapy and stammering. Some people were picked on as children or even adults and some people weren’t. Some people have never been to speech therapy before and some people had lots of speech therapy as a child that they feel did not help with their stammer at all. We understand that it can be confusing and frustrating to live with a stammer and people all too often feel that there is little to no help available.
Stammering therapy is as individual to the PWS as the person themselves. Every single PWS is different – as the saying goes, if you’ve met one person who stammers, you’ve met one person who stammers. We have spent a lot of time here learning about the lived experiences of PWS and we continue to learn every single day from our clients and other people. We truly want to understand you and why now is the right time for speech therapy and I wanted to explain a little bit about the therapy we do to help you in your choice.
Step one is focusing on your individual stammer. What does your stammer look or sound like? Are there any triggers? Times when your speech is more fluent? Less fluent? What’s underneath the surface of your stammer? What feelings arise? Are there situations you avoid? Certain words or sounds you swap around? Have you stopped yourself going for that job or promotion because of your stammer? All of this information is key to understanding your stammer and it’s layers. We work on getting to the core of your stammer. Take a look at the graphic below that demonstrates how a stammer can build “layers” over the years.
Step two is focusing on desensitisation of stammering. We will explore some of the negative feelings and emotions you might have about stammering. We will work on ways to improve these negative thought patterns and difficult feelings. We will support you to do more of the things you want to do, but have been avoiding. We work on some biases and assumptions that you, the people around you and society have about stammering and we look to break down those assumptions.
Stammering does not need to stop you from doing anything that you want to do. There have been many great leaders, musicians, actors and public speakers who are PWS. For example, Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe, Rowan Atkinson, James Earl Jones, Samuel L Jackson, US President Joe Biden, Emily Blunt and Ed Sheeran are all stammerers. There’s a lot of work going on at the moment in social justice for stammering pride to fight against negative stammering stereotypes. Check out the book Stammering Pride and Prejudice: Difference not Defect https://stamma.org/news-features/stammering-pride-and-prejudice-book. There’s now tonnes of amazing TikTokers who are working against these stereotypes and having pride in their stammer. Check out Ge0rgiatalks on TikTok if you’re interested.
Step three is speech modification. This is what most people come to therapy for or are expecting, but the thing we work on last. The reason is because as we said earlier, we have to peel back the layers of the stammer to get to the core of it. Once we’ve got to this stage, we’re ready to work on the core stammering behaviours, such as repeating initial sounds or blocking. We work on changing your speech to flow more easily and be more fluent.
Finally, we work on ways for you to take all the skills we’ve worked on in therapy and how to ensure you can maintain these skills in everyday life. We work on building your very own “stammering toolkit” and setting you up for life.
Please note, if you are a Liverpool resident, you can access the Willy Russell Centre for stammering for help and support and can self refer via the link or go via your GP https://alderhey.nhs.uk/services/speech-and-language-therapy/willy-russell-centre.
If you want to meet and connect with other PWS, then check out STAMMA local and online groups on https://stamma.org/connect/local-groups. STAMMA also have a great podcast called Around the Block, so be sure to check that out too.
I hope this blog gives you a good insight into how our stammering therapy works. If you have any questions, concerns or feedback, then please do contact us here. If you think the time is right for stammering therapy then please do get in touch for a chat.
