Evolution of an Individual's Stutter

[jamesm]

Does anyone feel like when they were younger their stutter was completely different than as an adult?

I feel like as a kid I would repeat the first syllable almost all the time, I can't really remember blocks or anything................
As I got slightly older, maybe because I was learning new words, I began word switching or buying time like saying, "The movie was really... well..I don't know...it was..exciting" When I knew all along that I wanted to say the movie was exciting I just felt that I would stutter on "exciting" so I would "act" like I didn't know what to say. I also remember simply sometimes just saying "I don't know", LOL and ending it there. It seems so funny to me now. I would be talking about something and then all of a sudden just feel like the rest would be too "stutterful" so I would just kinda give up and say,"I don't know". Repetitions were still there but mostly word switching dominated my speech.....
Then it seems when I got a little older, maybe middle shcool to present, BLOCKS are the main problem. Like I've said in another thread, when I feel a block or am literally blocking at that moment I'll use a cluttering word like "like, uh or um"..Now I feel like I can not so much word switch, but replace whole sentences that I know I will be fluent on.

Anyway... It has seemed like my stutter has evolved from my childhood to present, Im 26 now. My speech has definitely not been the same since I learned to talk. Maybe, within a person, as our minds began to learn how to "deal" with our stuttering they kinda change the way speech and thought are linked and produce "new" forms of stuttering as we age. But if there is some sort of pattern, (being 1.repetitions 2.prolongations 3. word switching 4. blocks etc., and not necessarily in this order) we can begin to better understand how stuttering works... Is anyone else's speech history similar to mine?

[grantM]

Hmm but remember your perceptions as a child are completely different to now being an adult. So are your social and professional interactions and responsibilities. I do not think a stutter evolves. It changes from time to time in severity and occurance. I do not think it grows stronger and adapts as we do. We adapt to it though

[Slider]

I think, too, that confidence plays a big role. You may be more comfortable doing certain things than you were as a child, so your speech may be better as a result. That's been the largest difference for me as I've gotten older.

[jamesm]

I completely agree with you guys. I think like you said grantM, WE do adapt to IT. I guess I was saying earlier that, in that adaptation it sometimes "seems" like the stutter may be predominately one characteristic (such as just blocks, or just repetitions), i.e. seeming like it had changed from one characteristic to another, but I guess that is more of OUR adaptation to IT, not vice versa. It definitely does vary from time to time in severity and occurrence. Sometimes It feels like you may be fluent for months at a time, then all of a sudden, no fluency for weeks and weeks, at least it has been like that for me all my life.

[Thecoherentman]

Hmm but remember your perceptions as a child are completely different to now being an adult. So are your social and professional interactions and responsibilities. I do not think a stutter evolves. It changes from time to time in severity and occurance. I do not think it grows stronger and adapts as we do. We adapt to it though

We adapt to what? We adapt to our perceptions? Or, we adapt to adapting to our perception? How is that the adapting is not the same as changing and evolving? Your need to blame stuttering on something only static and not on what we do and maintain by relearning, in progressively more complex ways, is a sort of need to use mindlessness to adapt to pain.

[grantM]

Through experiences, age, responsibilities, changes of attitude etc is how we adapt our lives to our own individual stutters. The stutter itself does not evolve, but we change ourselves to adapt to it, depending on how, changes from individual to individual. We do over time adapt how we perceive it and also how we choose to live with it, and in some cases try to overcome it. In this case the individual may be mini-evolving but not the stutter itself. God help us all if the stuttering behaviour started to evolve!

[Derek181]

mines defiantely evolved over the years. when i was a kid i had little tiny stutters and most of the time some word switching or something would work. then as i got older none of those word switching techniques worked. once i got to a word id start stuttering and i couldnt pull myself out of it. also it got to a point where i would stutter on everything so it didnt matter if i tried to switch words. when i was a younger kid i was very outspoken and then as i got older i became more and more quiet. by the time i graduated i was a very quiet person.

[Iron Cable]

I don't think anyones stutter stays the same forever.
As you get older, you voice changes. Over the years you may pick up and drop several useless habits. Treatment may effect your stuttering whether it's successful or not.
There could be a number of things that can effect your stuttering.

[stutteringgirl4]

Mine has stayed the same. I cant really see a difference from when I was smaller, to now.

[pamm]

Funny this was posted here today, becasue I am dealing with a change in my own stuttering pattern. I too am wondering if it is evolving or changing, because my stuttering openly is still so new. I was covert for many years until 3 years ago. I mostly do repititions and prolongations.
Lately, I have been doing stoppages - I don't like to call them blocks, but this is new for me. I feel very much out of control when this happens and it seems to be occuring quite a bit. I am thinking its tied to stress, but can't really be sure. It may just be part of the stuttering that needs to come out, that was there below the surface all the time, and now that the volcano is free to erupt, its all coming.
Anybody else ever feel like this!

[Leys Geddes]

I heard a recording recently of me speaking when I was about seven. I was stammering alright, about as much as I do now, but with no blocks. So I've come to reason that the blocks are caused by tensions which are related to the way in which talking, and our society in general, becomes more competitive as we grow older. I am trying to reduce the blocks by going back to a more repetitive style of stammering (voluntary stammering, also known as Iowa Bounces) in order to g-g-g-get me over a block. It draws more attention to my stammer, but it avoids the grimacing and the silences!

LEYS

[Thecoherentman]

Human Brain is the mother of all plasticity and adaptations and the one masterpiece of evolution that nothing is spared in its evolutionary design even not the mechanics of how "God works"

[Thecoherentman]

Anthony Queens and Winston Churchill would not have learned the eloquence of speech that they had if they did not pay attention to their internal stuttering impulses. Origin of the stuttering is not a disease. It becomes a disease when we stutterers decides we must fight with it by closing our eyes and not seeing it. Blocking and closing our eyes to outside world while we are closing our eyes and feelings to our inhibitory stuttering impulses and depending on just force and pushing and expecting for outcome like a gambler is our way of adaptation. Can you imagine what kind of a driver we would be if we closed our eyes as soon as another car was getting close to us and there was a fear of collision?

[Thecoherentman]

Mine has stayed the same. I cant really see a difference from when I was smaller, to now.

Keep your stuttering as simple as it has been and it will fade away. If you watch it carefully it will fade away. The information you capture with your observation and feed back to your brain will erase your stuttering. Just observe your speech and do not try to out smart it. Observing your inhibitory impulses teach you much more than just about your stuttering. If stuttering is strong and the need is mounting to prevent you from being fluent you must let the need win. Every time you succeed in defeating the stuttering and when you are rewarded by finishing your word, you learn to do it again, that is you relearn to finish your words with stuttering.

[jaissal]

My one seemed a bit different when i was young. maybe i just wasn't so aware of it that much or it didn'tr bother me as much as it does now. As life is much different in adulthood compared to childhood, my stutter seems to affect some of the things that i do now.

[TK421]

I have seen changes throughout my life (22 years), but do agree that the change is how we percieve and handle the stutter. Blockages have always been my biggest problem, and what I've seen change is the way I handle these blocks.

When I was younger, I would develop little nervous ticks like blinking a lot or shutting my eyes when I felt a block coming, or tapping my finger and trying to align my speech to the rhythm to glide past. Then as I got older I began using other body language like crossing my arms in frustration when I struggled to get past a block (sounds pretty silly...but it managed to work at times), or shifting body weight and staring at the ceiling.

Today, however, all of those sound more appealing than my newest development. When I'm in a bind and NEED to get the words out immediately, I subconsciously clear my throat right in the middle of a sentence. But it isn't a normal throat clear, it's much louder and pretty embarrassing, with this sort of heaving/wheezing sound to it. It's actually one of the main concerns I have with my stutter at this point in time.

[Thecoherentman]

Dear TK421

Some stuttering patterns appear when stutterer finds a new way to make the timing of speech (specially start of the words) more ambiguous. As the stuttering struggle, which is the conflict between approach and avoidance, intensifies just before the moment of the time target. Clearing the throat is exactly such a trick. Another trick is what they use in airflow therapy. Airflow therapy is only useful if it is used in reading alone without audience to clear out some of old habits like your type of clearing the throat habit. Airflow therapy must not be used in the real situation as eventually makes the stuttering more complex and difficult to cure.

The fox goes to see a doctor and complains about his chronic stomach ache. The Doctor tells him he must eat a little dust from a valley that he has never used as toilet. The fox cries that he has not left any valley unused.
Path to recovery for stutterer is to sharpen the observations. The opposite of what we have been doing for years.

[nerrad]

Mine has gotten worse. I block now but when I was younger, my stutter was so small that I didn't really realize it. I think I got worse when I started realizing I stuttered. Hopefully at some point it will fade away.