The Prof is In

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Re: Voluntary stuttering / avoidance reduction ?

From: Walt Manning
Date: 03 Oct 2011
Time: 09:59:01 -0500
Remote Name: 141.225.97.96

Comments

ibc, When experimenting with voluntary stuttering I have heard many people express that they didn't realize they had a choice about how to stutter. When speakers are given "permission to stutter" rather than spending nearly all of their effort stuggling to be fluent and trying NOT to stutter the understanding of their options begins to change. As others have said, desensitization and a decrease of avoidance behavior are central aspects of the process. I think one of the first principles of dealing with a problem is going at it rather than denying it or doing all you can to avoid it. Rather than avoiding and hiding, voluntary stuttering as described in the earlier posts provides a way to cope with the problem in a new way and vary and experiment the old, automatic responses to stuttering. By increasing the degrees of freedom about how you stutter, you are able to experiment and even "have fun" with your stuttering. It's also important to realize that voluntary stuttering can result not only in easier forms of stuttering (less struggle and effort)but - along with other activities and techniques - it can lead to spontanious fluency.


Last changed: 10/22/11