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From: Joe Klein
Date: 06 Oct 2008
Time: 05:18:12 -0500
Remote Name: 74.70.44.201
Hi Jack. You asked about the best therapies, methods, and practice schedule for people who stutter. The short answer to all of those is the best therapy is the one that works best for you. To me, the best therapy is some mixture of fluency shaping (FST)and stuttering modification (SMT) therapy. It all begins, though with a real awareness of what you are doing. From a FST perspective, when you are fluent or stuttering, are you breathing easily? Are you voicing? Are you moving your tongue and your lips, or do you keep them stuck together? From a SMT viewpoint, what are you doing once you begin to stutter? Do you push? Do you lose awareness? Do you get tense and struggle? So, once you know what you are doing, you will know what aspects you may need to focus on. And, as far as practice goes, the more you practice, the better, especially if it is practice in "real" situations. Practicing by yourself helps some people and does other people zippo. The best practice will be, once you have a handle on some of these things, to practice them in public as much as possible. Two more quick notes here: #1: voluntary stuttering, the question prior to yours, is great. If you find you have fears about stuttering, the best way to help that is to stutter in those situations on purpose. Once you do a few times, and realize the world has not ended, it will be tons easier to speak easier in that situation. Last note: It's time to end the idea of fluency shaping/stuttering modification. They are both helpful, and I have no idea where one ends and the other begins... Hope this helped. I wish you the best. Joe