My findings and experiences on Reading exercise

[Joe]

Reading aloud is commonly used and recommended by speech therapists as a preliminary stage and fundamental method in stuttering treatment, it has several advantages: 1. the nervousness and other psychological effects involved when reading, especially when alone, is minimal, which makes an easy start for a long-term therapy involving different steps and stages for most people who stutter; 2. It is probably the best way to observe the bad habits of a stutterer's normal/resonably fluent speech, as in other more intensed situations, the more severe stuttering would casue the identification to be difficult.

For the past month or so I have been spending 30--60mins on reading the news every morning, the benefit has been significant: it gives my speech mechanism a "warm-up", by applying and practicing the correct techniques in my reading, I tend to maitain the techniques in the following real speaking situations (though not for long) and consequently my stuttering tends to improve, I found the effect is similar to that of a shoot around session before a basketball game, you tend to carry your stroke to the real game.

After one month of reading, recording and identification, I made a summary of those aspects of speaking that I should pay great attention to and work on, here is the list of factors in decending order in terms of their importance:

1. Speaking/Reading at a low rate of about 120 syllables per minute.

I think for a stutterer who wants to improve his speech, speaking slowly is probably the no.1 priority: almost all stutterers speak too fast and by slowing down their speech, instant improvement can be obtained.

2. Dividing a sentence into several phrases/ parts with Diaphragmatic breathing in between

As I listen to my recorded reading, I found even those times when I read slowly and fluently, my speech still somehow sounded hurried, when I tried dividing a sentence into several parts and pause in between that sense of hurry suddenly disappeared. Also, diaphragmatic breathing is a lot more relaxing and "fluency friendly" than the usual "thoratic breathing" most stutterers use when talking since it does not tense those major muscle groups involved in speaking.

3. Sufficient/Exaggerated Mouth Movement

let me make a comparison/metaphor: if our speech mechanism is a factory production line, then our vocal folds would be the material or stuffing (concrete, plastic, steel) needed for a certain product and our mouth movement would be the mold that defines the shape of the product. When we stutter, sometimes it is because we do not move our mouths sufficiently or stay there long enough to make a good "mold", consequently as you fill the incorrect "mold" with the "material" (sound), the final product would likely to be distorted; sometimes we do not allow sufficient mouth movement and move to the next one too quickly, that is like you change one mold to another too quickly before finishing filling the material for the first mold, It is not difficult to imagine stuttering would occur under such dysfunctional mechanism. As I video recorded my speech, I found my mouth movement to be very insufficient, it almost looked like I am whipering when talking/reading, so I exaggerated my mouth movement. To my surprise, even I have exaggreated it to the point that I felt one can probably catch every single word I say by only reading my lips, it still doesn't look that dramatic on the video. Actually, if you inspect the way those broadcasters, tv host, journalists talk, you will probably find they often speak with very exaggreated mouth movements.

4. Sufficient Volumn

It gives me confidence. Also, since people usually read louder than speaking in real situations, I think reading (extra) loud would allow stutterers to raise the maximum volumn in other speaking situations as well, which is important imp since people who stutter are more likely to speak with volumns that are too low.

5. Relaxation of the major muscle groups (jaw, throat, neck, shoulders) that involved in speaking.

Relaxing those muscle groups allows me to better apply other techniques and makes the sounds come out more easily. It is extremely difficult to achive in real speaking situations though since those mucle groups of mine will get automatically, almost instinctively, tensed as I enter a tough speaking situation, it is like a mode switch that I am not in control of. Hopefully by reading I will learn how to gain control of and relax those muscle groups.


That is about it. I hope my experience and findings in reading can help you in your speech therapy. Also, if you have any remark or experience you would like to share, please feel free to do so.

Joe

[mo885]

Hi Joe,

Congratulations on this working for you. Reading aloud like this is part of the speech therapy program that I am doing now too. Mine has three parts- reading, monolgue, and conversations. I start off by doing reading. Start by reading one word ten times, then 2 words, 3 words, 1 sentences, 2 sentences, 3 senteces, ect. , then 1 paragraph, 2 paragraphs, 1 minute, 2 minute, and up to 5 minutes. If I stutter at all I have to start that step over. I find that it really works but then stops working, so I just keep doing it over and over again. I've done the whole program twice so far. I think reading like this works because like you said it makes you concentrate on your speech completely. Good luck too you!

[Joe]

Hi mo885,

Thanks very much for your post!

I found your reading procedure very interesting. It is actually the first time that I come across such technique of starting with a single word then gradually adding up to a paragraph, was it recommended by a speech therapist or did you design it on your own?

Another thing I would like to ask you about is how do you treat your difficult words (the ones you would normally run into a block on or try to avoid 5 words before)? I have not found an effective way to deal with them, the best I have thought up so far is to pick up a word, say it like several hundreds times and see if there is any improvement, maybe totally divide it into a bunch of letters first, or purposefully exaggerate the stuttering to desensitize my fear of the word. On the other hand I thought saying a feared word over and over may reinforce the bad habit I have, both in psychological and practical terms, and hence cause my fear to grow. How do you treat your feared words when reading?

Besides, I found it extremely difficult to bear in mind of all those aspects of talking I mentioned in the first post when reading aloud: when I deliberately slow down, i may forget about diaphragmatic breathing or relaxing the mucles, or vice versa. For normal speakers, speaking is just something so natural and fundamental but for me, it is like doing a hat trick while riding a bike at the same time, there is always something I am not in control of or simply forget to pay attention to. The best way I can think of is to take care of one aspect of speaking at one time for an extended period of time, a week? month? once I get used to it and it has become a habit, eg speaking at 120-150 without even noticing it, I move onto the next one. Do you think it would work? What is your strategy in coping with this?

Anyway, thanks again for your post mo885, good luck to you too.

Joe

[Slayer]

hey man im doing the same thing every day 20 minutes min. and ive improved greatly from the past year especially in the english language still got to work on reading out loud in spanish

[Joe]

hey man im doing the same thing every day 20 minutes min. and ive improved greatly from the past year especially in the english language still got to work on reading out loud in spanish

Welcome to the discussion and congratulations on the improvement you have been making. Any tips or recommendations?

[mo885]

Hey joe,
Yes what i'm doing is part of a fluency program. Its by called the ryan fluency program, by dr. bruce ryan. I do the thing I described with reading, with talking alone (monlogue), and conversation. Reading is considered the simplest so is completed first and then move on to the others.
Your question about difficult words I would of course stutter on them and my speech therapist would stop me and I would have to start over the 1 minutes, 2 minutes, or whatever step I am on. I would then try again and hopefully I wouldnt stutter on that word. It gets frusterating but after stuttering it on the first time I usually don't the second time. I do have a problem with reading very fast and i'm trying to slow down becuase I know that slowing down is proven to make people more fluent.

[Slayer]

well joe i dont really have any other tip your tips is exactly what i would recommened.

but a little off topic when using the phone start with the word yes like for example when calling best buy the worker would say "This is joe at best buy speaking how may i help you" then start by saying yes(pause) then continue what your going to ask, i seem to be like 95% fluent after then

[Joe]

Reading aloud is fundamental not only to help improve ones speech fluency but to increase and enrich our vocabulary as well. With that said, I read every day (school textbooks) and every night I read to my children (what ever they pick from their library).

Peace,

Elliott

Hi Elliott,

Good to see you in this thread, keep reading and tell your kids that they have a great dad.

Joe

[Joe]

Hey joe,
Yes what i'm doing is part of a fluency program. Its by called the ryan fluency program, by dr. bruce ryan. I do the thing I described with reading, with talking alone (monlogue), and conversation. Reading is considered the simplest so is completed first and then move on to the others.
Your question about difficult words I would of course stutter on them and my speech therapist would stop me and I would have to start over the 1 minutes, 2 minutes, or whatever step I am on. I would then try again and hopefully I wouldnt stutter on that word. It gets frusterating but after stuttering it on the first time I usually don't the second time. I do have a problem with reading very fast and i'm trying to slow down becuase I know that slowing down is proven to make people more fluent.

Hi mo885,

Thanks for the information, I really like the procedure of reading alone, talking alone then conversation because it is very scientific in that you gradually work your way up to more and more emotionally challenging and skill demanding speaking situations.

One thing I am not sure of though is the timeframe. Do you start all three situations together with reading aloud first for say, 20mins, then talking alone and finally real conversations, all in one day and repeat the procedure everyday, or do you spend the first few days or weeks solely on reading, after you master it or gain a great amount of fluency in it you move to the next stage also for a couple of weeks?

[Joe]

well joe i dont really have any other tip your tips is exactly what i would recommened.

but a little off topic when using the phone start with the word yes like for example when calling best buy the worker would say "This is joe at best buy speaking how may i help you" then start by saying yes(pause) then continue what your going to ask, i seem to be like 95% fluent after then

Hey Slayer,

Thanks for the reply.

Your phone tip came just in time because I had this plan of making a lot of phone calls tomorrow while video recording the calls to identify and analyse my stuttering over the phone. I will definitely try saying yes and pause for a second or two (hopefully not too much longer than that).

Joe

[Standingtall]

Hi Elliott,

Good to see you in this thread, keep reading and tell your kids that they have a great dad.

Joe
Pretty sure, Elliott's their hero.

I have not taken any therapy for my stutter, so it is very interesting reading your thread. Many years go, I started to think if I learned how to say my words better, then I should stutter less. So, with a couple glasses of water, I began reading out loud everyday. From reading the bible to reading road signs. Had a few people in the vehicle with me say, huh, what did you say. Reading a noval took a heck of a lot time and many trips to the bathroom.

I found that I don't stutter very much, when I am reading out loud. I don't even think about the hard words anymore. Many times, I can't recall the story I just read aloud or get caught up in the story that I quit reading out loud and get lost in the story.

Thanks for the interesting thread. I should really tape myself and see what I do. I found if I read my girls simple books, I stutter very little if at all. Once again, great thread, it is indeed making me think.

[Joe]

Pretty sure, Elliott's their hero.

I have not taken any therapy for my stutter, so it is very interesting reading your thread. Many years go, I started to think if I learned how to say my words better, then I should stutter less. So, with a couple glasses of water, I began reading out loud everyday. From reading the bible to reading road signs. Had a few people in the vehicle with me say, huh, what did you say. Reading a noval took a heck of a lot time and many trips to the bathroom.

I found that I don't stutter very much, when I am reading out loud. I don't even think about the hard words anymore. Many times, I can't recall the story I just read aloud or get caught up in the story that I quit reading out loud and get lost in the story.

Thanks for the interesting thread. I should really tape myself and see what I do. I found if I read my girls simple books, I stutter very little if at all. Once again, great thread, it is indeed making me think.

Hi Standingtall,

Good to have you here and thanks for the compliment.

Yes, taping your speech is an effective tool in overcoming stuttering since it provides you with an unique opportunity of discovering exactly what happens with you when you stutter and analysing your speech in a close and thorough manner.

I would strongly recommend Video recording, it is even better because it captures all those secondary symptons of stuttering, eg, eye blinks, head jerks, irregular breathing, eye contact avoidance etc. Those secondary symptons/behaviours are caused by the fear of stuttering but by eliminating them, one can significantly reduce the fear associated with them. People often think it should be the other way around in that one should tackle the fear first in order to reduce those symptons since it is the source, which is true theoritically. However, in practice, reducing the secondary symptons often help reduce the fear very well. Another great thing about video taping is it lets you know what you would look like, especially when stuttering, in other's eyes. Sometimes it isn't as bad as we thought, and that would help reduce one's fear as well as boosting his confidence.

Joe

[Joe]

This is proving to be a very detailed thread.

I used to think very much like you Joe, and analyse every part of my speech and my life in the quest for answers.

I still work on my speech sometimes using verbal recordings, and have used video recordings in the past also.

What part of the world are you from Joe, and have you been on any speech courses in the past?

Hi Power of Three,

Welcome to the discussion.

I am from China but live in London at the moment. I attended a speech course 4 years ago, it was a 10 days group course and the therapists didn't really know what they were doing, so I didn't benefit much from that. I have had some councelling over the past few years as well, it reduced my stress and anxiety at the time but didn't last long, what they told me is to "simply accept your stuttering and either your stuttering will improve due to the desentisation or you will find a way to happily co-exist with your stuttering".

I don't think it solves the problem because at the end it's not about whether I accept myself and my stuttering (I can accept it at anytime if I want) it's about whether the society accpets me. To be totally honest with you I don't think the society takes stuttering very well, especially in a time that not only fluency in speech, but also solid communication skills have become crucial in almost every aspect of our lives and is becoming increasingly important everyday: A job recruiter can patiently wait as long as I need to get out the name of the place I want to go to and show me the direction in the street but no way he would recruit an interviewee with a bad stutter given that there are other fluent speaking applicants; A girl at Uni can patiently wait for and carefully listen to my answer to her acedemic question at class but she probably wouldn't want to ask out a guy with a stutter. All those leave me with pretty much one single choice of overcoming my stuttering, or at least controlling it to the degree that it doensn't affect my acedemic, professional or social life any more.

And because all stutterers stutter in different ways and have different feelings towards it, I think the only way to achive fluency is for one to carefully design a fluency programme for himself and rigidly follow it, analyse and revise it if it fails to help, put in a huge amount of effort on a daily basis until he is really able to control his stuttering. I think most who gained fluency did it on their own. Bill Walton, a former basketball player in the nba, who used to stutter so severely that on a bad day he couldn't say anything, is now a successful sports commentator and game broadcaster. He designed a therapy for himself at the age of 28, worked very hard and finally overcame his stuttering after a few years.

Anyway, good to have you in here Power of Three, keep practicing on your speech, I am sure you will see the result one day.

Joe

[Joe]

Thank you very much for the reply, Steve.

Well, I reckon that acceptance of stammering is so important for the journey on the road to fluency. It is more important for you to accept yourself than for society to accept you. For, until you accept yourself, how can you expect others to accept you?


They are two different types of acceptance in my opinion: one is accepting my stuttering when talking, including all those awkward and embarrasing facial movements, instead of using different tricks to avoid stuttering; the other one is totally accepting stuttering in general, meaning that one stops putting in effort in overcoming stuttering and is ready and willing to take whatever stuttering gives to him in all aspects of his life.

I am working on and trying to achive the first one, in order to desensitize my fear towards stuttering and gain fluency, the reason why I am doing it is I don't want to stutter for the rest of my life, at least not to the extent that significantly affects my daily life. Maybe it's just me but I found myself tend to be less motivated towards working on my speech whenever I tried to accept my stuttering. So yes I don't accept it in general.

And what is the definition of the second type of "acceptance"? Or, what is "real/ultimate acceptance"? Many people, including some of the best speech therapiests would say you've truly accepted it when you don't feel shamed, embarrased or any other negative feeling when stutter and are not slightest hesitant in saying whatever you want to say in whatever situation. There might be a few who have achived this, but even for this group of people, if you ask them, "you don't feel bad when you stutter, that's good, but do you feel happier, delighted or just generally better when speaking fluently, especially in a tough speaking situation?" I can bet my life on this that all of them will say "yes", and I don't think that's "real acceptance", if they neither feel better when speaking fluently they've achived "real acceptance" (which i've never seen or heard of one in my life) in my opinion since as long as fluency makes one feel better than stuttering he would always wish (if not try) to be fluent at the back of his mind. Now, if wish, why not try?


All of the examples that you have given I have experienced, and the situations have worked out in my favour. I have been offered jobs where I stammered throughout the interview. I have gone out with girls who I stammered with like crazy when I met them.
It is all about the quality of person that you meet, not the quality of person that you think you are - or are not as the case may be.?

Yes one can probably find a job even with a stutter, but the question is: is it what he wants to do or what he can do? I think the bottom line is that if stuttering has affected my professional life to the extend that I can only be accepted on the jobs that I can do rather than I want to (those realistic ones that I would have a chance of getting if I didn't stutter this bad), then I don't count it as "I can still find a good job". It's different when it comes to love and relationships though, I agree with you on this one.

One will always find idiots who mock those who are the slightest bit different from the stereotype. I , for one, would much rather be different and an individual than live my life trying to conform to everybody else's view of what and who I should be..

I think we all tend to "conform" one way or another, it's not something that is determined by our own characters or personal preferences, it is simply set by the nature of this world. The society as a whole is always much stronger than any individual, thus for an individual to survive in this society, he has to "conform". Imagine if you turned up for your interview with some extremely casual wear, you might be told off straight away, now does casual wear strictly imply you must be incompetent in whatever job you are interviewing for, absolutely not, it might very well has nothing to do with your job, but that's the rule. Or if you make loud, ugly noises when eating in the canteen people certainly would not like it, does it mean you are a bad person or bad worker? Again, no but there is a convention of eating quitely. Now, if we follow or conform to (or whatever word you want to use instead) the way the society would like us to dress, eat, why not "conform" to the way the society would like us to "speak"? We all conform one way or another right since the day we were born and what's the difference?


I reckon the best way to achieve fluency is acceptance, and then to search for the cause behind it - the root - and then address this. Unless the cancer is removed, how can healing take place?.

I dont' disagree with you at all but I just sometimes think "acceptance" is a more passive way to deal with stuttering relative to tackle it with techniques, becaues if I accepted it, I would tend to regard speaking as something rather inherent and instinctive. But if I look at it this way: speaking is just a skill, or a form of art, to speak fluently (ie. highly skilled), one has to practice hard, revise his training schedule all the time, probably fail over and over in various speaking situations just like a gymnastic would fall many times on a move before finally master it. The benefit of this is that in that way I don't put a clear barrier between stuttering and speaking fluently, one of them is rough skill and the other is highly trained, refined skill. However, If I accept it, subconciously I might think there is a essencial difference between stuttering and fluency and over time this kind of mentality may become a
belief at the back of my mind.


Thanks for the encouragement Joe.

My days of self analysis and hours upon hours of speech and mental work are behind me now, and I enjoy life to the full regardless of my speech.
I still work on my speech now and then, but much much less than what I used to.

Where I am in life is where I am meant to be just now.

Good luck with your journey.

Steve

Thank you again for your reply, Steve, it was a very good discussion with you, I spent a lot time on this but I felt it's worth it. I hope there will be more discussions like this in the future.

Joe