What You Can Do to Help Yourself

An excerpt from Advice to Those Who Stutter by Lois A. Nelson, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison

If only you could talk without stuttering! You may be frustrated when stuttering occurs. You may get discouraged and angry with yourself and at the world. Nothing you try seems to be effective for long. At its mildest, stuttering can be annoying. At its worst, it interferes greatly with communication and with your life. Past experiences may have strengthened the belief that nothing you do will make any difference in how you talk. That’s where you’re wrong.

It is possible to change the behavior that you do when you stutter. Not by magic. Not by asking others to do the changing for you. The ingredients of change are firmly rooted in knowledge. You need information about the process of speaking fluently. You need information about the disorder of stuttering. And, you need to experiment with various ways of stuttering. A tall order but not if you have a plan.

To begin with, change your focus. One of the most difficult concepts to grasp is this: the behavior that occurs when you try not-to-stutter contributes to the severity of the stuttering. Try the opposite behavior: try to stutter. Become very familiar with exactly what you do while stuttering if you are to change it.

Too difficult? You simply want the stuttering to go away — never to occur again. That’s a normal reaction. You dislike repeating. You do not want to hear or see or physically feel stuttering. The experiences of feeling “stuck” are frustrating and perhaps frightening. Tremors in your lips or jaw may give rise to panic. It is hard work. Harder than you have ever done before. It is less fearful to study and analyze stuttering under the guidance of a fluency therapist. But you can do some of the identifying and categorizing of behavior on your own if you remember to do this “change work” in small doses.

Don’t overwhelm yourself. Tomorrow is another day. It took years for stuttering to develop to the level and in the particular pattern that occurs at this point in time. The process of unraveling the pattern and changing the disfluent behavior takes time also.

CELEBRITY FOCUS

Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor has been on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter for many years, but probably few people know all of the unique accomplishments of this former hockey great who was born on December 4, 1955, in Levack, Ontario.

Emily Blunt

Actress Emily Blunt struggled with stuttering early in her life. A teacher encouraged her to act in a school play at age 12 despite her stuttering.

Blunt’s name is prominently featured on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter.

Darren Sproles

Darren Sproles, a former player for The Philadelphia Eagles, the New Orleans Saints and the San Diego Chargers, made history in 2007 when he became the first player in NFL history to return a kickoff and a punt for his first two NFL touchdowns in the same game. In 2021, he was selected to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

King George

In November 2010, worldwide movie audiences were presented with a most interesting and unusual movie release with The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth as King George VI and Helena Bonham Carter as his wife Elizabeth.

Unfortunately, history may have forgotten the courageous and inspiring story of Prince Albert who stuttered badly and never dreamed that he would ever be king when his older brother, King Edward VIII, abruptly abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee.

Byron Pitts

Byron Pitts has brought much attention to stuttering with his memoir, Step Out on Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life’s Challenges, released in September, 2009. The book not only details his speech difficulties, but also his illiteracy until age 12 and his unstable family life. Pitts overcame the odds to become the chief national correspondent with ABC News.