Jim22 Here

[Jim22]

Hello to Everybody -

I'm a native of Little Rock, Arkansas and have been a stutterer most of my life.

According to my parents, I was stuttering by the age of 4 when I went to nursery school. They quickly removed me from the school but my stuttering continued. In fact, it grew worse.

In 1938, my mother took me to the University of Iowa at Iowa City where I would receive free speech therapy if I participated in an experiment by Dr. Van Riper to determine if a choice of handedness caused stuttering. It was found it did not and the therapy received was of little help.

In 1945, I went to San Francisco, California for therapy by Mabel Farrington Gifford who had written an excellent book in 1940 titled: How to Overcome Stammering. (By the way, her book was just reprinted in March, 2007.) The speech therapy I received from Ms. Gifford was tremendously helpful but, for some reason, I could not keep it going after I returned home.

During the next fifty years, while I married and had four daughters, my stuttering continued unabated, worse sometimes than others, and seemingly beyond my control--especially when I really didn't want to stutter!

I guess my lucky break came in 1987 when I decided (at least my hundredth attempt) to quit smoking cigarettes (I was using three packs a day). Summoning up what will power I had, I quit cold turkey, and haven't had a cigarette since.

So, I decided if I could quite smoking, I could quit stuttering the same way.

I guess it's needless to tell you it didn't work. But I was still determined to gain fluent speech.

The most painful way I stuttered was in severe blocks that resulted in facial grimaces and finally the word coming out explosively. During the time I was blocking, funny as it may seem, I would literally forget how to pronounce the word and would mentally ask myself, "Why didn't they teach me how to pronounce this word in school?" (I do not know if other stutterers experience this.)

So, I guess you could say that I home schooled myself and taught myself pronunciation, starting with sounds ... how I could speak without stuttering.

In 1988, devised a phonetic alphabet for myself that I could read easily (I found the IPA or International Phonetic Alphabet too hard to decipher).

Having done that, I took one syllable (the semi-liquid consonant L and the open vowel U = LU) and said "lu" to myself countless times until I was dead certain I could say it anytime, anywhere and under any condition without stuttering.

My next syllable was HI and I went around saying "Hi" to everybody I saw. I became the friendliest person in town - and I didn't stutter.

By 1989, I had progressed to some two-syllable words. The most important was "Hello," which I used when answering the telephone (I used to fear answering the phone and dreaded having to do it).

From there, I progressed to short phrases. And then I moved on to one-on-one conversations.

One day, in the spring of 1991, while I was at the bookstore (I owned a bookstore until I retired), a customer came in and said, "I haven’t heard you stutter in a while."

I said, "I think I've overcome it."

"Would you like to find out for sure?"

"Of course," I said.

"I belong to Toastmasters, a club where you practice speaking to groups of people. I invite you to come visit our club."

My response was immediate: a true stutterer's avoidance response. "Thanks," I said, "but I haven't got the time."

So he shook his head but gave me his business card before he left.

That evening, after the store closed, I sat alone in the back office and realized if I couldn’t make the time then, it was unlikely I would ever make time to prove I could speak fluently. So I picked up the phone, called him and joined Toastmasters. Although my speech controls worked so that I spoke to audiences of up to 100 without stuttering, and I became president of the club three years later, my fear of stuttering and avoidance techniques kept reappearing.

I could speak fluently but I was nervous while doing it. So in the years since, I have worked on removing the fear of stuttering, which I think I finally did a few months ago (July, 2007). But that still remains to be fully tested.

You are probably younger than I and I hope you can achieve fluency much quicker than I did.

I am not a speech therapist. What I've done has worked for me but may or may not work for others. I have started working on a book explaining step by step what I did to be able to speak fluently and (hopefully) overcome the fear of stuttering.

Best wishes to all,
Jim22

[bignick]

Jim,

Firstly what a great first posting.

You have certainly had a lot to endure in your life.

Welcome to the forum and we look forward to hearing about your experiences in your life.

Good to have you on board

Nick

[J1S]

Hey Jim.

Always nice to hear from people who have progressed well in getting over stuttering.

[bwelling]

Hello to Everybody -

I'm a native of Little Rock, Arkansas and have been a stutterer most of my life.

According to my parents, I was stuttering by the age of 4 when I went to nursery school. They quickly removed me from the school but my stuttering continued. In fact, it grew worse.

In 1938, my mother took me to the University of Iowa at Iowa City where I would receive free speech therapy if I participated in an experiment by Dr. Van Riper to determine if a choice of handedness caused stuttering. It was found it did not and the therapy received was of little help.

In 1945, I went to San Francisco, California for therapy by Mabel Farrington Gifford who had written an excellent book in 1940 titled: How to Overcome Stammering. (By the way, her book was just reprinted in March, 2007.) The speech therapy I received from Ms. Gifford was tremendously helpful but, for some reason, I could not keep it going after I returned home.

During the next fifty years, while I married and had four daughters, my stuttering continued unabated, worse sometimes than others, and seemingly beyond my control--especially when I really didn't want to stutter!

I guess my lucky break came in 1987 when I decided (at least my hundredth attempt) to quit smoking cigarettes (I was using three packs a day). Summoning up what will power I had, I quit cold turkey, and haven't had a cigarette since.

So, I decided if I could quite smoking, I could quit stuttering the same way.

I guess it's needless to tell you it didn't work. But I was still determined to gain fluent speech.

The most painful way I stuttered was in severe blocks that resulted in facial grimaces and finally the word coming out explosively. During the time I was blocking, funny as it may seem, I would literally forget how to pronounce the word and would mentally ask myself, "Why didn't they teach me how to pronounce this word in school?" (I do not know if other stutterers experience this.)

So, I guess you could say that I home schooled myself and taught myself pronunciation, starting with sounds ... how I could speak without stuttering.

In 1988, devised a phonetic alphabet for myself that I could read easily (I found the IPA or International Phonetic Alphabet too hard to decipher).

Having done that, I took one syllable (the semi-liquid consonant L and the open vowel U = LU) and said "lu" to myself countless times until I was dead certain I could say it anytime, anywhere and under any condition without stuttering.

My next syllable was HI and I went around saying "Hi" to everybody I saw. I became the friendliest person in town - and I didn't stutter.

By 1989, I had progressed to some two-syllable words. The most important was "Hello," which I used when answering the telephone (I used to fear answering the phone and dreaded having to do it).

From there, I progressed to short phrases. And then I moved on to one-on-one conversations.

One day, in the spring of 1991, while I was at the bookstore (I owned a bookstore until I retired), a customer came in and said, "I haven’t heard you stutter in a while."

I said, "I think I've overcome it."

"Would you like to find out for sure?"

"Of course," I said.

"I belong to Toastmasters, a club where you practice speaking to groups of people. I invite you to come visit our club."

My response was immediate: a true stutterer's avoidance response. "Thanks," I said, "but I haven't got the time."

So he shook his head but gave me his business card before he left.

That evening, after the store closed, I sat alone in the back office and realized if I couldn’t make the time then, it was unlikely I would ever make time to prove I could speak fluently. So I picked up the phone, called him and joined Toastmasters. Although my speech controls worked so that I spoke to audiences of up to 100 without stuttering, and I became president of the club three years later, my fear of stuttering and avoidance techniques kept reappearing.

I could speak fluently but I was nervous while doing it. So in the years since, I have worked on removing the fear of stuttering, which I think I finally did a few months ago (July, 2007). But that still remains to be fully tested.

You are probably younger than I and I hope you can achieve fluency much quicker than I did.

I am not a speech therapist. What I've done has worked for me but may or may not work for others. I have started working on a book explaining step by step what I did to be able to speak fluently and (hopefully) overcome the fear of stuttering.

Best wishes to all,
Jim22

Hello and welcome Jim, You have a good story. I hope you're telling it often.
I just did my icebreaker at toastmasters. What a rush. I got the best speaker award. So, I now have this crazy idea that I can speak. 50 years of stuttering and 30 years of different therapy assured and reassured me that I be better off not speaking.
But now it's a brave new world - time to let freedom ring.

I plan on attending the NSA conference in June. It would be great if you could consider attending. I'd like to meet up with a fellow storyteller.

bw

[Jim22]

bw -

'Way to go!

Congratulations on your icebreaker at Toastmasters and on having the guts to stand up in front of a group of strangers and deliver it.

The Best Speaker Award is just icing on the cake - but oh so sweet it is to the guy who's had to earn it the hard way.

I can't help but wonder, did you have speech controls to use during your icebreaker? Or have you escaped the fear of stuttering? How was your fluency, if I can ask so personal a question?

I'm not acquainted with the NSA Conference and would appreciate your telling me about it or sending me a link where I can find further information.

Hey, thanks.
Jim

[bwelling]

bw -

I can't help but wonder, did you have speech controls to use during your icebreaker? Or have you escaped the fear of stuttering? How was your fluency, if I can ask so personal a question?

I'm not acquainted with the NSA Conference and would appreciate your telling me about it or sending me a link where I can find further information.

Hey, thanks.
Jim

Jim - thanks for the support. First off, apologies to all the stutterers who use controls. I never could get myself to use them. I have met fluent stutterers who have become perfectly fluent through using them. I just don't.
I have not figured out how to escape the fear of stuttering.
After my speech, my evaluator did not make mention of dysfluencies and I was too nervous to note many blocks myself.

The NSA conference in June 07 was my first. It changed my life. It led me to this forum.
http://www.nsastutter.org/

I highly recommend attending. Also, there are chapter support groups in most every state.
bw

[Jim22]

bw -

My apologies to you.

I think I misled you when I used the word 'controls.' I did not mean some type of mechanical or nonhuman control. I think 'strategy' or 'technique' might have been better word choices.

Back when I stuttered and foresaw a word I thought would cause me trouble, I used the strategy/technique of increasing my flow of breath and letting the word flow out, using very light mouth action so as not to impede the air flow.

Do you use any strategy/technique like this to carry you over the hard spots?

Jim

[bwelling]

bw -

My apologies to you.

I think I misled you when I used the word 'controls.' I did not mean some type of mechanical or nonhuman control. I think 'strategy' or 'technique' might have been better word choices.


Do you use any strategy/technique like this to carry you over the hard spots?

Jim

Jim - thanks for the explanation. However, my apology was to other stutterers that use speech techniques that are usually taught in therapy to control speech patterns. I never was motivated to put them into practice. I feel sometimes that it means I'm not really trying.
I ride the hard spots,(intense blocks) out and I usually feel guilty for not using some technique that would have possibly shorten the duration.

bw

[J1S]

bw -

My apologies to you.

I think I misled you when I used the word 'controls.' I did not mean some type of mechanical or nonhuman control. I think 'strategy' or 'technique' might have been better word choices.

Back when I stuttered and foresaw a word I thought would cause me trouble, I used the strategy/technique of increasing my flow of breath and letting the word flow out, using very light mouth action so as not to impede the air flow.

Do you use any strategy/technique like this to carry you over the hard spots?

Jim

So thats what my programming teacher was doing!
It worked in making him able to talk effectively but it sounded kind of weird.

he was the only person I have met iother then my dad who stutters.

Unfortunately before I could go up and talk to him about how he deals with stuttering he had health problems and left school for the year.

[nik037]

Jim22- I was wondering if any of your children stutter? My fiance does not stutter but I concerned that when we have children I may pass it down to them, if not through genes, just by them listening to my speech as they learn to speak, etc.

[Jim22]

Jim22- I was wondering if any of your children stutter? My fiance does not stutter but I concerned that when we have children I may pass it down to them, if not through genes, just by them listening to my speech as they learn to speak, etc.
nik037 -

We had four daughters and none of them stuttered. We have nine granddaughters and none of them stutter.

However, with our four grandsons, it may be a different story. It is hard for me to tell. Diagnostic procedures have greatly changed over the past 50 years and what would once have been considered 'normal' may now be considered outside the normal range.

One of our four grandsons, as far as we could tell, had a problem with disfluent speech - not stuttering, but disfluency. He received therapy for that at ages 7-10 and has overcome the handicap. He is now in high school and seems well adapted.

Another of our grandsons is extraordinarily fluent but has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (a mild form of autism). Since the beginning of fall, he has been receiving behavioral therapy, using a metronome to help regulate his mental processing. It is too early to tell the result. He is currently in the fourth grade.

A third grandson, in the second grade, seems to have a problem with eating different foods. Perhaps this is a problem with mental processing. At present, he is being diagnosed.

The fourth grandson is a Boy Scout and seems to be doing great.

As you can probably tell from the above, I have come to the conclusion that stuttering is the result of an anomaly in the stutterer's mental processing and that it's inheritable.

Jim22

[Standingtall]

Hi and welcome Jim, I guess i am late to the party, i see you made yourself at home. Great to have you here and looking forward in hearing from you.

I have twin daughters and they both stutter, unlike my own type of stutter, they repeat words as i have silent blocks. They however were born with an cleft lip and palate and they have had a few surgeries. They are 6 and they are so happy right now, and all their classmates like them. They are very intellengent at their age. LOL, like an parent, eh. I have to brag.

I personally thing, having a stutter is not a good enough reason to take one self out of the gene pool, because every child needs a chance to grow up and become a very wondeful person.

My parents gave me a chance and look how i turned out. :D

Good to meet you and looking forward in hearing from you.

[Jim22]

Hi Standingtall -

I'm very impressed you have had cleft lip and palate surgeries for your twin daughters. I admire a father who cares for his children so well.

You mentioned that they stutter. Are they being given speech therapy? I understand it's relatively easy to correct stuttering when caught at an early age.

And, what about yourself? Are you doing anything to get rid of those blocks?

Jim

[Standingtall]

Hi Jim

thanks for the kind words, i think because i stutter, it makes me more of a parent to my girls. That extra special attention and lots of TLC, they will out grow their stutter and be strong when people comment about their cleft lip and palate or the scars and they way they talk. They are already seeing an speech theraptist, because their speech will be delayed and it has changed after their many surgeries. my blocks have improved a great deal over the years. It all changed when i change my attitude. Thanks for the interest and looking forward in talking with you more. I see your profile picture, i should do the same. Talk later.

Gene

[Jim22]

Hi Gene -

It's always fun to talk to a guy who has a positive attitude and finds the time to be an attentive care-giver besides.

I'm glad your daughters are seeing a speech therapist. Knowing your attitude, I figured that would be the case. Since they are receiving help at such an early age, they should soon be able to do away with their stuttering.

Meanwhile, I hope you're taking sufficient time to work on your own speech so you can get rid of those blocks you mentioned.

It would be great to see your profile picture. If you have a photo of yourself but not the software to prepare it for your profile, I'd be glad to do it. Let me know.

Jim

[Tinkabell]

Welcome to the forum Jim22.

:)

[divisi]

Hello Jim!

Btw, the technique you used for achieving fluency reminds me of neuropatterning, by Richard Harkness.

Do you think you did a therapy similar to his, or was it totally different?

Btw, Harness site is this: http://members.aol.com/rharkn/page2.htm

[Jim22]

Hi Divisi –

You are one keen observer!

My ‘system’ sounds somewhat similar to the neuropatterning used by Richard Harkness, but to me it is a little—significantly--different.

I believe both my system and the neuropatterning used by Richard Harkness are based on the plasticity of the brain, as best explained in Sharon Begley’s recent book, ‘Train You Mind, Change Your Brain.’

Actually, because I devised my system back in 1989-90, it was more or less jerrybuilt, primarily based on a 1940 book by Mabel Farrington Gifford, ‘How to Overcome Stammering.’

Mrs. Gifford’s system worked well except for two points: (1) the excessive breathy outpouring sounded somewhat weird and (2) the system to break down under stress.

Using Mrs. Gifford’s system, when stressed, either I couldn’t get speech started in the first place or I would run out of breath and then have a hard time getting going again without having to back up and repeat myself to get a running start (with breath). Whenever I tried to just power on ahead, I would inevitably run smack-dab into a block.

Everytime I ran into a hard block, I would go into some sort of panic mode and mentally ask myself, “Why didn’t they teach me how to say this at school?”

I resolved to answer my own question and began teaching myself (translate this as began teaching my brain) how to pronounce sounds. As I mentioned in my original introduction, I started with the sound, “lu,” progressed to “hi,” went on to “hello,” and gradually worked up from there, much like Mr. Harkness’s “alarm.”.

However, Mrs. Gifford’s “breathy outpouring” remained the principal motor of my speech and “very passive mouth action” continued as the primary regulator. Whenever I saw a block ahead, I downshifted my breathy outpouring motor from high to second (or low, if it was a really difficult situation) and, with my retrained mind, went through it fluently. As I learned to better control my speech, I had to downshift less and less.

I’m not exactly clear what Mr. Harkness’s “easy onset’ is, but think it may be some combination of the above. I question if, at the time I was teaching myself not to block, if I could have succeeded without having as much breathy outpouring as I needed to back me up. Somehow, the breathy outpouring provided all the power I could want for speech without causing me to block. I have not yet fully understood why this is so.

Again, thanks for taking the time and interest to email me and for the link to the Harkness site. Both are appreciated.

Jim

[divisi]

Hi again Jim!

I thought about Harkness because you said that you repeated syllables again and again, and progressed from 1-syllable words to multi-syllables, which is similar to Harkness course: His course "trains" your brain by endless repetition, just like athletes do.

[Jim22]

Hi Again, Divisi -

Yes, in the same way athletic training works, the Richard Harkness system would definitely train the brain to pronounce words more fluently. This is a great help to the stutterer ... even the most fluent speakers run into trouble trying to pronounce words with letter cominations they're not used to and don't know how to handle.

I have to ask, have you taken the Harkness course? If so, are you fluent now? And, I'm very curious, how many months did it take until you were confident of being able to speak fluently?

Jim

[divisi]

I have to ask, have you taken the Harkness course? If so, are you fluent now? And, I'm very curious, how many months did it take until you were confident of being able to speak fluently?


Hi Jim!

I began the Harkness course last week, so I didn't get any fluency enhancement yet, as far as I notice.

Regarding the expected time, Mr Harkness says he noticed a big fluency jump after the third week. I suppose it depends on the person, and on how much time you spend on it everyday.

I'm doing 2 hours of exercise everyday, but I'll make it shorter with the time.

[Jim22]

Hey Divisi -

That's great! Congratulations!

What are you practicing two hours each day?

Jim

[divisi]

What are you practicing two hours each day?

1-syllable words at this time, with abrupt intensity, and prolonging consonants and vowels. Lots of repetitions of different phoneme combinations. It also includes sessions watching yourself in front of a mirror.

[Jim22]

Divisi -

Since you're doing something somewhat similar to what I did to gain fluency, let me give you a suggestion that I found most useful. (Of course, you may be already doing this.)

When I practiced sound combinations, and looked at myself in the mirror, I found my facial expression appeared either deadpan or dead serious. So, I practiced smiling (or at least putting on a pleasaant countenance) while practicing sounds, so I would look alive.

This was one big help when I talked to others. It seemed to make my listeners more patient and more tolerant (as I used to stutter back then).

I admire what you're doing. You should find it exciting - trying for a better life. I'm hoping the Harkness system works for you. Keep us informed; let me know if I can help.

Best wishes,
Jim

[divisi]

Thanks a lot for your advice, Jim! In fact, when I practiced in the mirror yesterday, my face was like you said! I think smiling can help! Thanks for sharing it!

Of course, I'll tell my results in the forum, specially if my fluency improves. I hope so! I really want to improve my fluency!