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From: Peter Reitzes
Date: 17 Oct 2009
Time: 20:06:11 -0500
Remote Name: 76.15.239.95
Kim, thanks for writing. Great question. You ask, “How would you recommend getting someone to pause and take a normal breath as opposed to a breath with lots of muscular tension.” If I see muscular tension after pausing, it strikes me as being stuttering, which is normal (pausing may, and often does, reduce stuttering, but certainly does not remove or eradicate stuttering). I often work with clients on using pausing in conjunction with other speech tools, so that when a stutter (muscular tension) arises, the client may wish to use an easy onset or pull-out or some other strategy to work through the moment. I have seen some clients (mostly children) take a deep breath when first learning pausing. However, these same children tend to take deep breaths before speaking when not using pausing as well. My experience has been that simply saying something like “Let’s try using pausing with normal breaths” or “small breaths” is enough. It helps to use mirrors or a video camera so the client can see what he or she is doing. Thanks for writing Kim.