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From: Brian Humphrey
Date: 15 Oct 2007
Time: 01:51:38 -0500
Remote Name: 75.74.131.143
Laura wrote: After reading your story, I can't help but wonder - do you think the fact that you had a concrete cause of your stuttering made it easier to deal with? You mention that you were easily able to "laugh off" your dysfluency or explain your medical condition. Do you think stutters without such a concrete cause of their stutter could possibly handle it in the same way as you? Laura, I think that in part I was able to laugh about the irony that someone who had recently finished a case study on neurogenic stuttering would soon experience it. The only advantage to knowing that I was experiencing neurogenic stuttering was that I knew that neurogenic stuttering is often transitory, so I was hopeful that my stuttering would fade away. I think I had an advantage because I already knew a great deal about stuttering. A client with neurogenic stuttering had recently been on my caseload, and I had been doing a good deal of reading about neurogenic stuttering. I viewed my stuttering as an opportunity to "study stuttering from the inside". I would guess that "fear of the unknown” may be a significant component of many of our fears. I didn't fear stuttering or neurogenic stuttering because they were familiar to me. If I had started stuttering before I knew anything about stuttering, I may have had a different reaction, at least at first. However, I am one who gathers information when confronted with a problem, and who tends to think that humor is a good medicine for many conditions experienced by us humans. BH .......... Laura wrote: Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to stutterers in helping them deal with explaining their condition? .... Laura, my advice would be the same as before ... I tried the advice that I have been offering for years, and it worked for me. I used my stuttering as an opportunity to educate others. Educating others accomplishes several things: by bringing the issue out in the open, we can take control of the situation, we can create opportunities to create allies, and we can help other people learn and understand... I learned that it was important to be willing to experiment with fluency techniques to determine what would work for me personally. BH