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From: Bobby
Date: 19 Oct 2009
Time: 00:19:50 -0500
Remote Name: 71.228.119.75
Rachael: The only other therapy from my time way back then (36 years ago) that I remember well was “elongating my natural Texas drawl”. I complained that I wasn’t the one with an accent (they didn’t appreciate that much), and I wasn’t from Texas either (even though I could throw a rock from my yard in New Mexico into Texas). I can still drastically reduce my stuttering now if I drawl out my speech, but it requires me to talk much slower and I tend to lose track of where I am. This is frustrating and very tiresome at the same time. While it is an effective tool, I can’t keep it up for over about 5 minutes at a time. The doctors and therapists in Denver told me that I tend to try and talk as fast as I can think, that my mouth just can’t keep up with my thoughts, hence I start blocking and repeating. I still do a lot of repetitions because when I first started therapy in 1966, my therapist had me repeat everything I stuttered on, no matter what. I guess that doing that twice a week for three years kind of locked itself into my brain so much that I still do it. One sound that gives me extreme grief (besides my name) is the “L” sound. Of course my sister’s name is Lisa and the wife’s is Lynnetta. I have very hard time trying to say either one. I was told that a famous Greek philosopher tried using rocks in his mouth trying to cure his stuttering (can’t remember his name right now). Of course it didn’t work too well, but I assume the therapists and doctors in Denver thought it was worth the effort to try.