I recently purchased a book titled ‘Advice to those who stutter‘. One of the common themes is that the biggest cause of stuttering is the fear of stuttering. This month, while working on a lot of aspects related to stuttering or disfluent speech, I want to especially focus on removing the fear of these speech problems. I have read a little more than half the book, and plan on finishing the rest of it this month by reading a chapter every 1-2 days. However, here are my notes from just the first four chapters which I have condensed into five aspects of the challenge for this month.

1. Definite objectives. There will be three rules I am establishing right off the bat which will continue throughout the month. First, I am setting a daily quota of 3 people to talk with who are different from the norm for each day. This will provide me with the opportunities to work on my speech. Second, I want to not use avoidances (e.g. replacing a word with a different word, not speaking when I want to speak, abbreviating phrases). To help accomplish this, if I realize that I am using an avoidance involuntarily, I will inflict a self-penalty by making myself use the word I avoided 3 times thereafter as soon as I can in the conversation or subsequent conversations. Third, I will maintain eye contact during stuttering blocks. I want to face the situation and build confidence.
2. Replace the fear of stuttering with word analysis and phrasing. This and the subsequent parts of the challenge for this month will be more general in nature. Some ways I will accomplish this point include analyzing my stuttering pattern (lead up, event, and escape) when I do it instead of resisting the stutter or block, plugging my ears and reading aloud to feel the flow of the words, videotaping or recording myself if possible when talking with others and reviewing the media later, and tallying in speaking situations. What I mean by the last statement is to go directly into the block without starters, stutter all the way through without retrial, stop immediately after the stuttered word, and tally the block in a small memo book (write down the word and what happened).
3. Add, vary, and drop. The next step is to isolate either a stuttering pattern or an avoidance technique and dispose of them separately. At this point, I should already have a list of words I stutter on, what happens, and an analysis of the situation. I want to exaggerate the stuttering pattern deliberately, then vary it in some way, and finally stop doing it altogether. This should happen over the course of a few days (first day add, second day vary, third day drop). The second thing I want to do is make a list of avoidances that I am likely to want to use and the contexts in which I do so. Then, I will repeat the above process in getting rid of them.
4. Stutter more easily. From what I have read, stutters don’t usually ever totally go away. However, it is possible to make the stutter more graceful and less noticeable. One way to do this is to start the first spoken word with a very light contact from the articulators and prolong the first sound slightly before continuing on normally. If I find myself stuck in a block, I will consciously release tension (take a slight pause only if needed) and move forward. Also, after stuttering on a word, I will try to find a way to say it again while modifying how I do so and focusing on releasing tension. With all of these strategies, it is critical that I resist time pressure in communication, at least for this month.
5. Fluency. The goal is not just to lessen a speech pathology, but to improve in my overall speech fluency. This includes speech rate, loudness level, inflection, length of phrases, and diction. I want to build flexibility in speaking by varying all of these in different speaking situations. Basically, for the second half of this month (after I have focused specifically on the middle three challenges), I will think about one or more of these fluency factors when in a conversation and have a goal (e.g. varying volume, focusing on proper diction, trying to speak with long phrases or short phrases, etc.) that I strive to fulfill each time.

The few people to which I have mentioned my stuttering problem have mostly responded with surprise, saying they were not even aware of it. This seemed strange to me at first, but after thinking on it, I realized that the main way I deal with my problem is by either avoiding from saying something altogether or else pausing before a hard word and substituting an easier word. So, in trying to get rid of the fear of stuttering, there is one more challenge I am setting for myself that did not really fit into any of the five points above.

One thing pretty much every chapter of the book I have been reading agreed on was to stutter on purpose. This will be the hardest part of this month’s challenge. According to the experts, this is the number one way to reduce the fear of stuttering which is usually one of the contributing factors to the pathology. I will have a brief evaluation at the end of every day this month to see how I am doing with each part of the challenge. Wish me courage!