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From: Ken Logan
Date: 18 Oct 2012
Time: 22:37:03 -0500
Remote Name: 98.70.58.10
This is a really good question Emily. As some of the others have suggested, I think it really comes down to a person's level of satisfaction with how he or she speaks. That factor seems to be at the heart of "choosing to work on speech," whether it be through formal speech therapy or through other less formal means. So, in that sense, it really is a personal choice (leaving aside cases where parents make the choice for their children). Regarding personal experiences with speech therapy, I'll speak mainly about my college-era program, as that was the most significant. While in college, I was fortunate enough to participate in a speech therapy program where I learned strategies for regulating articulatory movements (e.g., rate, force of movement). It involved many hours of practice. I found that the things I learned there were *really* helpful at helping me speak with level of smoothness and ease that I hadn't experienced for a long time. Of course, this was not a magic fix by any means. It took *lots* of self-directed practice afterward plus lots of incidental learning through reading and interactions with others who had dealt with the same or similar issues before finally getting to the point where stuttering faded into something that was no longer such a big deal. The process was definitely slower than I would have liked (isn't that how things often go!) and formal speech therapy was only part of the process. Anyway, I suppose the reason I chose the therapy path was mostly by default (it just seemed like the thing to do after the "I'll do it myself" approach didn't work very well at all!) - but also due to the gentle prodding of a friend or two, and a former professor.