Archive for the ‘Stuttering’ Category

An Integrative Approach in Treating Stuttering

Sunday, December 5th, 2010

Are you looking for some inside information on Stuttering? Here’s an up-to-date report from Stuttering experts who should know.

…Generating Fluent Speech

There are several speech therapies aimed at controlling or eliminating stuttering. These therapies vary from what kind of program fits the characteristic of the patient.

One of these therapies is called generating fluent speech. A comprehensive speech processing approach that aims to guide people who stutter to develop a speech processing similar with normal fluent speakers. Developed by Barbara Dahm, it is a therapeutic program for stuttering developed at Communication Therapy Institute in Israel. This has been developed from her several years of experience with people who stutter.

Established in 1987, Communication Therapy Institute is a private clinic specializing in the treatment of stuttering. Barbara Dahm, M.Ed is a speech pathologist who founded and currently heads CTI Communication Therapy Institute.

This program is based on the premised that stutterers use processes for the production speech different from the normal fluent speakers. Thus, the program includes steps in which stutterers relearn the speech production process. Exercises include learning to vibrate their vocal folds in an effortless manner, thus training them to monitor words and speech sounds.

The program’s exercises aid the stutterers to focus their attention away from the activity. This results to simplified language development process and as such becomes subconscious. Stutterers also learn an uncontrolled speech muscles and makes articulation an automatic process at a rapid rate. It also aimed at making the patients fully understand their speech production system so that they can self-correct their errors. After this program, patients are expected to be confident speakers whatever situations they may face.

How can you put a limit on learning more? The next section may contain that one little bit of wisdom that changes everything.

The exercises are not intended to teach fluency but train the stutterers to detach from the result of the activity of speaking. Eventually, repetitive and religiously done activities will result to a proficient act of speaking. The goals of learning conscious effort, artificial monitoring speech, and subconscious controls will make stutterers speak effortlessly.

The therapy program is divided into two stages. Children from age 10 and adults will undergo approximately 90 hours of intensive therapy for stage 1. Stage 2 will consist of six months self-help therapy. However, during these times, clinicians will be available depending on the patient’s needs.

Children below age 10 have a different set of stages. Stage 1 comprises a regular scheduled individual therapy sessions until the patient is able to produce speech easily and correctly in conversation and oral reading. Stage 2 consists of shorter and less frequent therapy sessions with self-help and family assisted home therapy.

Results have shown that people learn the process within the three-week period of the first stage. Some patients also testified that through this program, they were able to understand their difficulty in speaking. The program aided them for making self-improvements in their ability to speak fluently.

The research study showed that Generating Fluent Speech is an effective therapeutic program. The results showed that patients developed a stronger sense of self-confidence and relaxing body mechanisms when speaking.

Recently, the findings of latest researches indicated that Generating Fluent Speech is most utilized therapeutic approach in treating several stuttering cases.

Now you can understand why there’s a growing interest in Stuttering. When people start looking for more information about Stuttering, you’ll be in a position to meet their needs.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Understanding stuttering

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

The following article includes pertinent information that may cause you to reconsider what you thought you understood. The most important thing is to study with an open mind and be willing to revise your understanding if necessary.

There are a lot of times when we encounter people with speech impediments. Some are brought about by stress, some are brought about by after surgery wounds and some are from birth. These impediments vary from lisps, stuttering, stammering and hairlips. Some are easily curable but some may just as be psychological in symptoms and causes. Understanding it needs a lot of open mindedness and patience.

What is stuttering?

One of the major speech impediments that haunts people?both young and old?nowadays is stuttering. Stuttering refers to an impediment in speech. This is accompanied by symptoms like repeating or prolonged syllabication of a word, repetition of a single syllable or repetition of whole phrases or stopping anytime during the utterance of a sentence and sometimes it also involves not producing the sound for a certain syllable, word or sentence.

There are a lot of factors involved in the worsening or alleviation of a persons stuttering. Most of the time environmental factors, human intervention, drugs and other things and situations around a person’s living space or environment, of these factors affect stuttering adversely. In most cases it causes stuttering to occur more often and in extended periods.

It seems like new information is discovered about something every day. And the topic of Stuttering is no exception. Keep reading to get more fresh news about Stuttering.

Factors like stress, fatigue, over excitement and nervousness can effectively make stuttering in a person worse.

Other than these situations in which you are put on the spot, situations where you are asked to publicly speak in front of an audience. Or it could be worsen by asking to explain on the spot or generally speaking about things that you have little knowledge of. Generally, stuttering becomes a defense mechanism in people that are put in an embarrassing situation or situation that would make them feel rejection. And essentially when people are in a state of relaxation they become less prone to any stuttering.

People of all ages can fall victim to stuttering. In adults the effects of stuttering are rooted early in their lives, but as adults stuttering completely affect their social skills and their adult lives in general. People?adults?with stutters are often times put to the sidelines because when the need to speak up arises they are burdened by their stuttering. Aside from the fact that it is difficult for them to have a normal relationship with other people, this is because communication is hindered by the person’s stutter.

Stuttering develops early on in a person’s life. It is especially common with developing children, usually at the time when they are learning how to speak; this is usually at the age of 2 up to 5 years old. While most of the to time majority of children outgrow the problem of stuttering on their own, yet there are those who bring with them stuttering in their late toddler years. For the children who were not able to outgrow the problem of stuttering there are specialized doctors and facilities that offer speech therapy. These therapies help children with stuttering problems live a normal life that is free from stuttering.

There are studies that show that the living conditions at home play a big role in the development and the discontinuing of stuttering in children and in adults. Since the root cause of stuttering in all ages is stress and anxiety, it is highly recommended for parents and family members to have an open mind about children that stutter.

Understanding where they are coming from and building confidence in the child guarantees for them that they will win the fight against stuttering.

Sometimes it’s tough to sort out all the details related to this subject, but I’m positive you’ll have no trouble making sense of the information presented above.

About online the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Key Factors to Remember in Stuttering Therapy

Saturday, November 27th, 2010

There are myriad of ways to treat stuttering. One should not let stuttering get in the way of their speaking and conversing with other people, especially when one needs to demonstrate emotions.

A very popular treatment in stuttering is the speech therapy. This requires consulting a speech-language pathologist. However, finding the right speech-language pathologist for you is very important for they vary in expertise. Some may work perfectly with young children, while others specialize in problems associated with brain damage.

There are key factors to keep in mind in entering a therapy process. Pathologists and clinicians will not solve your disorder. They will be just key instruments in aiding you to eradicate stuttering. First, you should remember that all stuttering therapies are self-help process. Second, such therapy is long term and full-time process for stuttering affects not only your speech but also attitudes and behaviours. Thus, the third key point is about a therapy that alters speech, attitude and behaviour. Last, be sure to be clear about the process.

Speech therapies are sometimes available at local health clinics or university speech clinics. But do remember that mostly clinicians and pathologists here are graduate students in training. The graduate students also change each semester, so your relationship with your clinician is also changing.

Choosing a clinician and pathologist is another important factor in your therapy process. Vital aspects of time, financial resources, and plans are to be considered here. As a guide in selecting your clinician, here are some key points to look at. This advice is from Hugo Gregory of North-western University, a known speech-language pathologist.

One is the perspective of clinician on how to treat and use a program for his patients. Does he believe in one general type of program or a varied program that fit a particular characteristic of a stutterer?

So far, we’ve uncovered some interesting facts about Stuttering. You may decide that the following information is even more interesting.

Second is the content of the program. Does it focus on altering speech or does it include change in thoughts and feelings, or a combination of both?

Third is the process of the program. Does it include mechanisms for modification of stuttering or does it emphasize on learning skills for a stutter-free speech? This is also related to the fourth one. Does the program combine procedures for modifying stuttering with teaching of skills for building fluency?

Fifth is the practical aspect of the program. Does the program ensure a practice of learning from the clinic to real-life situations?

Sixth is the effort of the clinician to understand and link the frustration of the stutterer and his life experiences to be able to map how his patient will succeed in therapy and life in general.

Seventh is the span of time the therapy process will take. Is it short term or it has follow-up program to assist the stutterer in the process of change?

Lastly, has the clinician provided several opportunities for his patients to express their experiences before the therapy, during and after the therapy?

Generally, people who plan for a stuttering therapy should remember that good clinicians are honest, positive in their attitudes, open-minded, informative, and detail disciplined.

Take time to consider the points presented above. What you learn may help you overcome your hesitation to take action.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Ways of helping stuttering kids

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

Stuttering is a very common problem in the world today. There are millions of people in the world today suffering from stuttering and they need our help. But to help these people?especially the kids?we must first understand how stuttering affects them. In finding out how kids are affected by stuttering then we can formulate a good way of helping stuttering kids.

Awareness is a must

To better help kids with stutters we must first know what stuttering is. “Stuttering” or “stammering” in modern medicine is described as a speech impediment that involuntarily disrupts the flow of normal speech. Normally, some words, sounds, and syllables are repeated in a specific pattern such as “li-li-like this”, or prolonged excessively such as “lllllike this”.

Oftentimes, it could also be that there are abrupt stoppages or absence of sounds of sounds and syllables at all. And in some cases, especially in kids, they usually stutter from the beginning of a word or phrase and there are also those who show difficulties at the end of the word/s.

The next step to help kids that stutter is to know what causes stuttering. Studies show that the causes of this speech impediment range from virtually unidentifiable at all to genetic and inherited reasons. More and more experts believe that genetics could cause stuttering because there are cases that this speech problem runs in the whole family.

If you find yourself confused by what you’ve read to this point, don’t despair. Everything should be crystal clear by the time you finish.

Some scientists also say stress?along with rejection, anxiety, and other negative emotions?can be related to stuttering because these c ontribute a lot

on how kids express themselves.

Another possible of stuttering is the stage of language development. This theory says that stuttering may be caused by a developmental recession when small children who are learning to talk find it hard to express themselves fluidly?especially when it comes to expressing their needs. But, as they grow older, many kids overcome this kind of stuttering with proper encouragement from parents and siblings as well as support and motivation from teachers and peers.

There is also a theory, which says that stuttering is neurogenic?meaning the connection between the brain and the muscles are disrupted somewhere along its path. Experts say that this can cause stuttering especially to people who have suffered from cardiac arrests, repeated strokes and even mild heart attacks. This is more applicable to older people but can appear in kids who have accidents, which can cause brain injury, and underwent medical procedures or operation.

After knowing the possible reason, you can now look for alternative?which comes in the form of therapies. Today, there are many therapies available that may improve stuttering, but at the present time there is no cure. In treating cases of developmental stuttering, therapy generally involves helping the parents to restructure the child’s speaking environment to reduce episodes of stuttering.

Other suggestions for treating kids suffering from speech impediments such as stuttering is providing a relaxed speaking environment with few distractions, practicing attentive listening, and refraining from being critical about the child’s condition. For other types of stuttering, medication may be prescribed, or electronic devices may be used to improve fluency.

Some therapies focus on relearning how to speak, or in unlearning faulty ways of speaking. To find the best course of action, it is best to consult with a competent speech and language pathologist first.

That’s the latest from the Stuttering authorities. Once you’re familiar with these ideas, you’ll be ready to move to the next level.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

How to spot a Stuttering Stanley

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

People with stuttering problems are easy to pinpoint in crowd, usually there are the ones who hide in their shells and never try to open up to people. Usually they keep to themselves or stay in a corner out of attention’s way. We don’t even have to know what the symptoms are, we just need to be observant enough to spot them from a distance. The main reason they stay in the dark is because they don’t want people making fun of them or their stutter. It is understandable enough that these people only want to live a normal life but because of their stutter they have a hard time having one.

If people can still remember the movie about a kid who thinks he is a freak because he can see ghosts. Of course we can’t mention it proactively but we are going to use it as a reference to the point we are trying to get to, if one can remember the teacher who scolds the kid for not paying attention. He has a problem with nervous stuttering or stuttering triggered by nervous reaction and anxiety.

When the boy mentions the incident when the teacher was back in elementary school they used to call him “stuttering Stanley”, the teacher in his anxiety and nervousness starts to stutter to himself words and phrases that is meant to clam him down. But when the boy kept on repeating what the teacher’s class used to call him with he snaps and with a stuttering tone he tells the kid “shut up you freak!” clearly a statement made out of anxiety and pressure.

This is the kind of burden people who suffer from stuttering have to deal with every single day of their lives, yes it’s easy to tell them that you need to see a speech therapists to straighten out your tongue or you need to go through this kind of anxiety therapy to over come you stutter. Even though the therapies and the treatments are for their own good sometimes these people are reluctant to adhere to them because they find it embarrassing and shameful to admit to the fact that they have this kind of problem. With out the proper support group and emotional encouragement these people would go on their lives having the label of stuttering Stanley.

It seems like new information is discovered about something every day. And the topic of Stuttering is no exception. Keep reading to get more fresh news about Stuttering.

How do we spot people that need our help?

Look for the signs and the signals. First off all, to help these people we have to avoid calling stuttering a sickness or say that the signals are symptoms. People with stuttering issues usually have confidence issues as well. So let’s not dampen their already wet spirits.

Be aware of what you need to look out for.

People need to be educated about what exactly it is they are trying to find., you wouldn’t just go out and catch fish without knowing how to. First of all, know the signs of stuttering, the signs and signals of stuttering are:

- Speech. A person suffers from stuttering when he or she person is having a hard time starting a word, sentence or phrase, there is repetition or prolonging of a sound, syllable or word, and difficulty in pronouncing certain letters;

- Physical signs. The person who has speech problem such as stuttering experiences a succession of rapid eye blinks, trembling and tremors of the lips or jaw, and the involuntary tension, tightness or movement of the face or upper body.

Of course, it’s impossible to put everything about Stuttering into just one article. But you can’t deny that you’ve just added to your understanding about Stuttering, and that’s time well spent.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Foolproof Ways to Control Stuttering

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

This article explains a few things about Stuttering, and if you’re interested, then this is worth reading, because you can never tell what you don’t know.

An effective speaker is someone who can speak fluently without any trace of mumbling, rattling, and stuttering. If you speak well, people perceive you as a smart, charismatic person. On the other hand, if you often stutter and cannot express yourself clearly when you speak, people see you as an incompetent and weak person. Between the two kinds of speakers, which would you rather be? Of course, anyone would choose to be a fluent speaker.

However, as much as you would like to be flawless when you speak, there are times when anxiety and nervousness get the better of you. Sometimes as you speak, your tongue seems to trip itself over no matter how hard you try not to stutter. Don’t worry, it is possible to overcome this speech problem if you know the ways to control it.

If stuttering has become more of a habit than an exception to you, here are the steps you can take to curb that habit:

1. Create a mental picture of what you are going to say.

People who frequently stutter fail to visualize the words they intend to say before they start to speak. Worse, most of them have no idea what to say exactly and how to express it verbally.

If you try to picture in your mind what you wish to say, then it will be a lot easier for you to find the right words to use to convey your message. It would be better if you practice visualizing the letters of the word you are going to say as you speak.

2. Perform an aural visualization.

I trust that what you’ve read so far has been informative. The following section should go a long way toward clearing up any uncertainty that may remain.

Practice speaking the words you usually find difficult to pronounce. That way, you make it more comfortable for you to speak those particular words. Let your brain hear the words you are going to say. This mental exercise helps you get used to speaking the words that typically cause you to stutter. Stutterers who perform the exercise successfully get more confident when they speak.

3. Avoid pressuring yourself too much.

The more you pressure yourself to speak fluently, the higher your chances of stumbling when you speak. It is because you increase your anxiety and stress when you are pressured, causing you to stutter. Stressing out yourself won’t do you any good?just relax and you will soon get the hang of it.

4. Speak more slowly.

The problem with many stutterers is that they speak very fast and forget to breathe before they start speaking. Take a deep breath before you speak and feel the rhythm of every word that comes out. Speaking too fast can lead to more stammering. So speak in a moderate pace so that you will stutter less often and will be understood by your listener.

5. Speak as though you are singing.

Try this: when you speak, do it in a singing way. Do you feel how much easier it is to speak that way? It is because people tend to stutter less when they sing. So why not use that technique to minimize your stuttering?

Don’t limit yourself by refusing to learn the details about Stuttering. The more you know, the easier it will be to focus on what’s important.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Some Important Notes about Stuttering

Saturday, November 20th, 2010

What do you know about stuttering? Everybody experiences this at times, especially when the pressure is on and the stress is becoming too much to bear. But this is actually a medical condition which symptoms include repetition, stumbling on words while speaking and far out hesitation as to go on with the thought or not.

The Factors
This case is very likely to run in families. But until now, it is still unclear how the genetic factors affect the condition and how important are these in such case. Another source that experts are looking into is the neurological area. There are some evidences that points to this as the source of the situation.

The Stages

You will notice that little kids do stutter. But they only do so for a short period of time. Only a little percentage from such case will develop the situation into something of a medical condition. They usually go from repeating consonants or having a hard time starting out their thoughts into repeating of words, phrases and sentences. Studies show that this will likely to develop more on males than females on the adulthood phase.

The situation is a passing phase on children’s lives. This is more common on ages 3 to 5. It will return to normal once the person has developed their speech patterns as well as their confidence. Too much fuss about the situation will only make the situation worse. This will make the person who has this self conscious to the point that they will think about it too much and that will only make the situation worse.

But a person who has this will often be able to overcome the situation or the sickness, if they are alone and talking to themselves or if they are singing. They will also find themselves being able to overcome the condition when they are reading aloud.

Once you begin to move beyond basic background information, you begin to realize that there’s more to Stuttering than you may have first thought.

The Treatment

A person who is experiencing this kind of problem no longer needs to be examined to know that something is wrong because it is very evident with the way they talk. Check ups will follow up if more than having speech difficulty, other conditions arise.

As the earlier cases of people who tend to stutter have likely been resolved on their own and happen only on a short term period of time. That is why there is not one best cure for this condition. But studies are still being done as well as the observation of people who have this. But if the problem becomes uncontrollable, then you may need to go through speech therapy.

The Setbacks

People who always stutter tend to shy away from other people. As a result, their social skills are being affected in a negative way. Children fear the fact that other people will make fun of them and that they will be ridiculed. If parents will not intervene at such point, children may tend not to speak at all. And this must be avoided.

So when stuttering is already affecting the person on a different level, like they cannot concentrate on school or they cannot make friends in fear of the consequence, consult a medical expert about this. Do not wait for your child to miss out on the glee moments that they must experience just because they have a difficulty in communicating their thoughts.

Take time to consider the points presented above. What you learn may help you overcome your hesitation to take action.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Neurogenic Stuttering, Other Symptoms and Causes

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

Neurogenic stuttering is caused when some nerves would not respond how the brain wants them to. This is only one of the causes that is being looked into by endless studies that are being done regarding the matter.
 
What is Stuttering?

Most of this information comes straight from the Stuttering pros. Careful reading to the end virtually guarantees that you’ll know what they know.

This is a speech disorder that can happen with children and adults alike. When a person stutters, the natural flow of the words spoken are being disrupted by so many repetition of syllables, words or phrases. Other people who have this condition prolong sounds that they hear or sounds that are part of the speech that they want to say.
 
The other symptoms of serious stuttering include rapid blinking of the eyes. The lips and jaw are also seen tensed. The upper body of the stutterer also experiences tremors when they can’t get across what they really want to say.
 
Although different studies have already been done about this subject, it is still a mystery in the world of medicine. But the experiments are continuously going on. So if you are a stutterer or you know someone who has this condition, you must not feel that there is no hope because the fact of the matter is that the experts aren’t stopping in learning its roots, causes and the medications that can aid such condition.
 
Stuttering and stammering is the same. But this condition is different from other speech problems such as spasmodic dysphonia and cluttering.
 
What remains to be a mystery with stammering is that the person who has this condition can clearly be understood when they read aloud, talk to oneself and sing. The condition are often directed towards the brain. Experts said that the brain areas that handle the speech patterns are often disfigured on people who have this sickness.
 
But you need not worry about the intelligence of a person who is a stutterer. This aspect is not affected by the condition. And they must be reminded about this important note. If a person feels pressured about how the society reacts to their condition, they might tend to shy away from the public’s eye and scrutiny.
 
In America alone, about three million of its population suffers from stuttering. The situation usually becomes apparent when a child reaches the age of two up to five or six years old. If nothing is done to remedy or lessen the situation, it will become serious as the person grows old and matures.
 
So if you are a parent of a child with this condition, make sure that you provide them with support and proper speech therapy. If you want to feel enlightened about the situation, here are some people who have suffered from the condition but have surpassed its negative consequences. These people are known as best speakers in the world who suffered the condition during their childhood. These include Mel Tillis, Bruce Willis, James Earl Jones and Carly Simon.
 
There is hope for people to overcome this obstruction. You just have to have the right support from your loved ones. You must also be exposed to the right set of friends. You must thrive in an environment that can accept you regardless of your condition. And you must also be in constant search for drugs, medicines and therapies that can help alleviate and cure the condition.
 
Neurogenic stuttering also happens when a person is hit by a stroke and other form of sickness that may injure the brain. When this happens, the therapy will surely alleviate the problem.

Take time to consider the points presented above. What you learn may help you overcome your hesitation to take action.

About the Author
By penicillin Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Is there a miracle cure for stuttering among kids?

Saturday, November 6th, 2010

The following article covers a topic that has recently moved to center stage–at least it seems that way.

If you’ve been thinking you need to know more about it, here’s your opportunity.

Most of the time people look for easy fixes and miracle cures for a lot of different illness and diseases. In a lot of instances people are asking to be rid of their sickness without really understanding what the symptoms and causes of the illness is. People are easy to think that a miracle cure can help them save the day. The truth is the no miracle cure for AIDS, there is no wonder drug for HIV and as true as those two truths can be, there is no cure for stuttering.

Stuttering is a speech impediment that causes a person to repeat or prolong the syllables, a word or a single phrase in their statement. This is often caused by severe anxiety, over excitement, self consciousness, embarrassment and stress. People who are put in a hot seat situation often times stutter and stammer for the words to say. People who experience stuttering may experience it as a self-defense mechanism. Adults who have most likely developed stuttering as a defense mechanism also suffer from low self esteem, lack of self confidence, weak personality and weak communication skills.

Most of the time children who have developed stuttering outgrow it in their early toddler years. Children develop stuttering at the time that they are just about learning how to speak. The reason behind is that they are yet to be familiarized with the different textures of sound and they are comfortable in reciting the words or phrases that they find most convenient to them.

Children who are well observed and guided outgrow stuttering without any problems, but for children who do not out grow stuttering there are some factors that contribute to it. One may be the child’s confusion in the language usage. Multi-lingual families often have this kind of setback in the speech development of a child, especially when the child is exposed to different words of different etymologies. Families having and using different dialects or languages to communicate makes it difficult for a child to learn which one language they need to use.

Hopefully the information presented so far has been applicable. You might also want to consider the following:

Another problem or factor is the child’s ability to receive proper coaching and encouragement from parents, children who are rarely monitored by parents often never over come their stuttering because no one was there to help them out. Stuttering in adults causes serious social issues, all of it could have been detected and taken care of as children when they were developing.

For parents, finding the time to stimulate and motivate your children to develop their esteem and their communication skills helps a lot in changing the way people talk. People with stutters of ten need help early on.

Lastly, one of the major factors that contribute to development of stuttering is the refusal of parents to submit their children to professional help. Some parents, especially those with close minds find it a disgrace to them as parents to have a child with defects. Considering the lack of communication skills in a child is considerable defect which constitutes to abnormality. Though a rarity nowadays people who are stuck in the medieval times still think it is god’s punishment to have children with defects.

The real cure for stuttering is knowledge and understanding, there are a lot of speech therapy classes and facilities that specialize in helping people with stutters live a normal life and all it takes is for people to understand.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Treatments for Stuttering in Children

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010