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Do you have a stutter? Does one of your children have a stutter? Do you know somebody who has a stutter? This article is all about the speech impediment known as stuttering or stammering. It includes information about stuttering and also treatments which are available to help people who stutter to achieve fluency.

Stuttering is a much larger problem than many people think. Latest research suggests that as many as one percent of the population of the UK has a stuttering problem and that around eighty percent of these people are male.

I had a stutter for eighteen years. I have been informed that I started stuttering when I was only four years of age. I regularly attended speech therapy over the next fourteen years before deciding that it was unlikely to ever help me to achieve fluency.

The stutter was one huge frustration for me as at times I could talk very well. Certain situations such as when I felt under pressure or when I was very tired, was when speaking fluently became very hard for me. I had a number of words which I believed that I was unable to say and would often fear these type of sounds. I would go to great lengths to avoid having to say them, which was not that easy at times.

Some people I have met have become extremely good at hiding their own stutter. They have stated that most of the people that they know are not even aware that they have a speech impediment.

Other people are not able to hide their stutter in this way and will have what is perceived to be a much more severe stutter.

There are a number of treatments for stuttering including the normal route of speech therapy via the local doctor or hospital. Many people who stutter find this form of therapy very frustrating as there are often long waiting lists, and the sessions are normally quite short and irregular.

There is also private therapy in the form of people who have managed to overcome their own stutter. This can be on a one-to-one basis or in a group situation.

Other people attempt to seek help via hypnotherapy or confidence based courses.

I managed to overcome my own stutter after a lot of hard work and practice. It was not easy by any stretch of the imagination, however the results have totally transformed my life. I have now enjoyed speaking fluently for the last ten years.

I have met many people who stutter in that time and have been amazed to hear some of the stories of how they started to stutter. Contrary to popular belief it does not just originate in childhood but can start at any age. A traumatic event can at times trigger the start of a stutter problem in people as can certain forms of abuse.

If you have a stutter do not despair, help is available and fluency can be achieved if you have the right attitude and are willing to work hard to kill off your stuttering demons.

This article is about the fear and phobia of speech. Not everybody is able to talk fluently in all situations and for people who aren’t, life can be quite tough. I hope you enjoy reading the article.

My name is Steve Hill from Birmingham in England. I developed a stutter or as some people call it a stammer in childhood. From what my parents tell me it started when I was four years of age.

Speaking phobia at school

Despite regular speech therapy over the next fourteen years the stutter became worse. I remember quite clearly the fear of having to read out from a book in class. Walking into the classroom, for example an English lesson, I would see that there was a book on each desk. I would start to panic straight away believing the teacher would make me read a paragraph. Just waiting my turn, knowing that it would result in yet another one of stuttering moments would be torture.

Socialising phobia

Socialising with friends was not exactly easy for me either. Most people look forward to their Friday or Saturday night outs with their mates. For me though this was not the case, I would be counting down the days as the week went on. Three days to go, two days to go, oh no, I have to go out tomorrow. You may be thinking why this would fill me with so much dread. Being unable to say certain words beginning with certain letters made it difficult to order a round of drinks and the whole conversation thing was something I was not at all confident about.

Telephone phobia

My worst area of speech was using the telephone. I certainly had a phobia to the phone and was quite lucky as my father would make a lot of my calls for me. Some people may say that this was not exactly helping me in the long run. This may be correct and I was very grateful at the time.

Interview phobia

After leaving school, I started to attend interviews to try to find employment. I would normally stutter more when under pressure or when meeting new people and both of these situations are prevalent in an interview situation. I would normally arrive at the interview very tired after a lack of sleep through the stress of it all and I have to say found it very difficult to convince any employer to take me on.

At the age of twenty-two I managed to overcome the stutter and now run The How To Stop Stammering Centre in Birmingham.

Steve Hill

In this article, I write about the various types of stuttering therapies that are available. My background, I started stuttering at the age of four, it continued until I was twenty-two, basically ruining the eighteen years in between. I then fought very hard and eventually overcame the stutter.

According to latest figures, around one percent of people in the UK have a stutter. Most of these people will have seeked help at some stage of their life, and will have looked into stuttering treatments and the different forms of stuttering therapy. This is what they may have found:

Traditional speech therapy

Speech therapy is where the majority of people who stutter will start when trying to improve their speech. I myself, attended speech therapy from the age of five, I continued attending until the age of eighteen. Thirteen years and I still had the stutter, that was successful!

The advice I had been given at speech therapy was basically:

speak slowly

take a deep breath before you speak

accept your stutter

I am sorry but that advice is just not good enough.

Group stuttering speech courses

There are now a number of private speech courses that are run on a group basis. In my opinion these are of more value than traditional speech therapy as at least the aim of the course is to eradicate the stutter. Speech therapy is more of controlling and accepting the stutter.

One to one speech courses

There are also one to one speech courses available. I personally believe that this is the best form of stuttering therapy as each person will have their own individual stutter and needs.

Stuttering self help dvd and ebook

For people who would prefer a self help form of stuttering therapy, there are now stuttering dvds and ebooks available.

Many people become affected by different levels of stress. This stress may be caused by worrying about money, work, relationships, health, family, holidays, moving house or many other daily issues. For certain people who live life with a stuttering problem, stress can have an altogether different meaning. As well as worrying about all of the above issues they have many other things to stress about, things that fluent people just take for granted and see as very simple tasks/events.

I will take as an example a young man who is eighteen years of age, I will call him Peter. Peter has had a problem with his speech for as long as he can remember and has what is known as a stutter or stammer. Despite attending regular speech therapy classes, Peter has continued to be affected by this form of speech impediment and is starting to become very concerned about the future.

The first area of concern for Peter is his career prospects. He worries that quite a lot of employers may be reluctant to employ somebody who has a speech impediment and even if he is able to gain employment he worries about how he will cope in the workplace when he is unable to talk fluently. Routine tasks such as answering the telephone, having a conversation with a colleague, having a meeting with his team leader are things that cause Peter a lot of stress. This stress is affecting Peter before he has even got the job, what will he be like therefore once he has one.

Peter also stresses about love and marriage. He has yet to have a girlfriend, which he puts down to his lack of overall confidence and ability to chat them up. He would however dearly love to meet a woman with whom he could call his own girlfriend but worries that no girl/woman would want to date somebody who has a stutter. Even if he were to meet a girl, he then worries about all of the social aspects that go with having a girlfriend, such as meeting her parents and friends. Peter has never been one for socialising and prefers to spend time on his own relaxing. When he is on his own Peter never has a problem with speech and can say any word without the fear of stuttering.

Marriage is something Peter is almost certain he will not be getting involved with. The thought of having to stand up in front of a crowd of people, to give a speech, fills him up with dread. Peter can not imagine himself ever having the courage or confidence to be able to do that.

For people out there who are stressed about something, spare a thought for people who stutter as they have probably got it a whole lot worse than you.

This article is about health problems and how some people let these problems get them down too easily. By thinking in a more positive way they are more likely to see a positive outcome. I hope you enjoy the read.

I once had a neighbour who was about sixty-five. She was such a negative person, very rarely smiled and seemed to moan about almost everything. Her name was Nancy.

When I first moved to this particular area, I tried to make friends with the people who lived close to me. When I first met Nancy she kept saying how ill she felt and about how her back was playing her up. I went away from this meeting feeling quite sorry for Nancy.

Around two weeks later I bumped into Nancy again. I aked her in a very positive and upbeat way, how she was. I wish I had not bothered as I then had to listen to all of her problems. She did not have one happy thing to say. Over the next few years of living by Nancy, I actually went out of my way to avoid her.

I have to admit that I also used to feel sorry for myself. I grew up with a speech impediment known as a stutter. I often used to wonder as to why I was given this problem. It did not seem fair to me as I believed I was a really nice person. I would often think as to why god had not given Craig the impediment as he was a nasty piece of work.

I lived with the stutter until the age of twenty-two and then began to have a change of attitude. Instead of looking at people who I thought were more fortunate than myself, I started to read and hear about people who were far less fortunate. By watching the news on the television, I saw some images and heard stories from other countries which made me realise how stupid I had been. I may have had a stutter but compared to other people in the world I am very fortunate.

When people ask me how I am, I always give a positive answer even if I feel terrible. I try and walk around with a smile on my face and am now living life to the full. I have also managed to overcome that horrible stutter.

People like Nancy could do with having the same change in attitude and they may find they have more visitors to their house and that some of their ailments disappear.

My name is Stephen Hill, I have overcome a stammer which had been a major thorn in my side for eighteen years. My aim in life is to try and help as many other people to achieve fluency as I can.

When I had a stammer, I would attend speech therapy, at which I would be told to slow down or to take a deep breath before talking.

This did not seem to help me very much and after attending these speech therapy lessons for eighteen years decided it probably never would.

I firmly believed that my own stammer was very much a physcological as well as a physical problem as at times I could talk very well, like for example when I was talking to my girlfriend or when I was talking when I was drunk.

I decided to read a lot of books about positive thinking for example and at the same time started to study how good fluent talkers were speaking compared to me. I was basically trying to re-learn how to speak.

It was hard for me to truly believe I would ever be able to achieve fluency as everyone had always told me that you can not overcome a stammer.

After about a year though I managed to overcome the stammer and then started to help other people to achieve fluency.

Stephen Hill runs The How To Stop Stammering Centre in Birmingham.

I am Stephen Hill from Birmingham in England. I started to stutter at the age of four or five. My parents took me to a lot of different types of speech therapy, some in groups, some on a one to one basis. The kind of advice I was given to control my stutter or to overcome my stutter were varied. These are some:

slowing down my breath

costal breathing

prolonged speech

taking a deep breath before I spoke

I had began in the class called, preschool stutter. This term is labelled by the stutter speech therapist or the stutter speech pathologist. My parents were reassured that most people who stutter in childhood soon grow out of it. Well I was one of those who didn’t.

I then joined the class called, childhood stutter. I continued to attend speech therapy and joining in with their speech therapy activities and their speech therapy games.

I then progressed to the class called, adult stutter. I now decided that speech therapy was not really working for me.

I decided to try my own form of stutter self help. Even though I had a stutter, at times I could talk very well. As an example when I was drunk, I spoke nearly perfectly fluent.

After nearly a year I managed to overcome my stutter and eradicate the stutter once and for all. As a career I now help other people to stop stuttering.

I offer various types of stuttering therapy, the most popular of which are one to one speech therapy courses which are held in Birmingham, England. I now offer three day courses aswell as the original five day courses. For people who would prefer a form of stuttering self help, I offer a seventy minute dvd which also comes with a written booklet called the course notes. These notes and the dvd have full descriptions of each of the techniques I teach on the speech course as well as the forms of practice to use to enable those techniques to become a natural part of the persons speech. I have had a very positive feedback from the people who have purchased this form of stuttering self help.

I am someone, who from what my parents have told me, started to stutter when I was four years of age. I have to say that I hated having a stuttering problem and was determined that I eventually would be able to have the confidence to say whichever words that I wanted to, in any situation. There were you see a number of words which I believed I just could not say and I also found it difficult to talk when I felt under pressure. After living with the stutter for eighteen years, I finally managed to achieve fluency and life has never been so good. It is like having a weight lifted from my shoulders.

Many people who stutter find that it can, in a way, rule their whole lives. Every decision they take seems to be affected by the speech impediment. For example, I decided to leave school because of my own stutter. My life at school was made so much harder by being unable to converse fluently. In fact I used to fear going to school, this was mainly because I was scared that I would be asked to read out aloud from a book or would be asked a question in front of the whole class. I will never forget when I attempted to take part in a role play in an English lesson, I was a complete nervous wreck and had a terrible time.

When I was at home, a place where I should be relaxed, I used to be afraid of the telephone of all things. Fluent people may well think that I am crazy from some of the things that I am admitting to in this article. On the other hand, I am sure other people who have a stutter may identify with some of the issues that I was trying to deal with on a daily basis. Going back to the telephone, there were many times when the phone would start to ring and I would just ignore it and not answer it. My parents would return home a little while later and would see that someone has perhaps left a message. They would enquire as to why I had not answered the call, I would reply with some excuse such as that I had popped out to the shops.

As you can see I basically had a fear of stuttering and during this period I would do anything to avoid stuttering. To overcome the speech impediment I was willing to do anything to beat it.

This article is about learning to think positive. There are far too many people walking about in a state of gloom and depression. I have to admit that I was one of these people until I managed to turn my whole life around at the age of twenty-two by taking a different approach. I hope you find the article beneficial and enjoyable to read.

From around the age of eleven when I started high school to the age of twenty-two I was not exactly a happy person. One person actually mentioned that I walked around like I had the weight of the world and its problems on my shoulders.

I was always looking at other people in my class for example and thought that they were so much luckier than I was. They did not seem to have half of the problems that I did. I was jealous of them as they were seemingly cruising through life where as it was one huge struggle for me.

You may be wondering what my troubles were. I had a stutter which had affected me from the age of four. Stuttering put a huge dent in my confidence and made me withdraw into my shell.

I had a weight problem which was mainly caused by comfort eating when I was depressed. Since birth, I have had a bald patch on my head, it is not a large area of baldness, however it was big enough for people to notice and mock me. I was always the shortest person in the class and for a male I am well below the average height at five-foot four.

At the age of eighteen, I was having a conversation with one of friends who is called John. John was one of the people I had always been jealous of for many different reasons. On this particular evening we were both fairly drunk and John had became quite emotional. During our conversation he told me that his father was an alcoholic and that at certain times when he arrived home worse for wear that he would hit his mom. He was very worried about this and was not sure what to do.

Over the next few years, I found out aspects of other people’s lives in my circle of friends, which I had not been aware of. The issues I had were very visible, where as their problems had been hidden and kept secret.

I have become more and more interested in world affairs since the age of about twenty. Certain events from around the world have really shocked and I find it hard to imagine how I would cope living it various countries. I am now very grateful that I was born in the UK.

I have learnt that we all have problems and that in most cases there is always people worse off than ourselves. I now try to think in a much more positive way and am very happy with the cards I have been dealt.

Most people at some stage of their lives will become the victim of bullying. People may think that this only occurs at school, however a lot of bullying also occurs in the workplace and even by your local neighbours. This article describes how I have learnt to deal with these nasty people, by playing what I call the nutter card.

At school I was an obvious target for a bully. I had a speech impediment known as a stutter or a stammer. I was always struggling with my weight and was larger than most of my other classmates and I was the shortest male in the class.

The bullies saw me as easy prey and I was. I was not sure how to handle these people and they made my time in high school quite depressing. I did not tell anybody of the abuse I was receiving and could not wait to leave at the age of sixteen. I have to admit that at this time in my life, I was quite weak and a bit of a wimp.

I believed that in the workplace this would not continue to be a problem as I would be working with adults. How wrong could I have been?

I was employed in an office environment and one of my duties was to answer the phone and to also make outgoing calls. Having a stuttering problem made this task very difficult for me. I would often travel to work feeling physically sick.

There was one main bully who made my life hell, his name was Gary. Gary was one of the most popular people in the office, he was a bit of a rebel and the ladies loved him. He was a big, strong man who loved to play rugby at the weekends. He would often come to work on a Monday morning bragging about how many pints he had downed on his Saturday night out, and about how many women he had slept with. I thought it was all rubbish and that he had probably stayed in with his mom watching the television. Other people worshipped him like some sort of God.

Gary constantly took the mickey out of myself and would mimmick my stutter at regular intervals. I tried to not let it bother me, but it did. I let this continue for nearly year and by now I was feeling very depressed and was ready to quit.

I then read a book about the subject of bullying and it wrote about something which they called, playing the nutter card. Basically at for example work, you can be who you want to be. Nutters come in all shapes and sizes and if you threaten the bully in a strong enough and convincing manner, they will normally back off, as most bullies are cowards.

I decided to be brave and give it a go. I could not physically hurt Gary as he is twice the size of me and twice as powerful. He does not know the people in my circle of friends though, I needed to convince him that they could.

On the day when I actually went for it, it had not been planned. I never really believed that I would do it, even though I wanted to. On this particular day however, the abuse was constant and very upsetting. I was really mad and clocked out of work and went to wait by Gary’s car, but hidden behind a tree.

Gary eventually approached his car and went to unlock the door, as he did I jumped on his back but quickly fell off. He turned round with a shocked look on his face, however was happy when he saw that it was me. I started swearing at him and told him that I had had enough. I informed him that a number of my friends are a bit tapped in the head, but that they would do anything to help me. If I told them the abuse he was giving me, they would not be best pleased and would basically beat him to a pulp. I warned him that if he ever took the mickey out of me, that I would tell them and that he would then have to wait for his punishment to take place. I then ran off shaking.

The next day I went to work in a nervous state, I am happy to report he fell for the bait and was as good as gold after that.

In conclusion, do not let people bully you. Do whatever you have to, to gain the power back and to live life free of these horrible people. Good luck.