Stuttering

What is it?

Stuttering impacts speech by interrupting the flow of what you are saying. Everyone who speaks has some level of stuttering, usually sounding like hesitations and filler words. For about 1% of speakers, stuttering is frequent enough to affect intelligibility in conversation and cause negative emotions. The main presentation of stutters, or disfluencies, are categorized as repetition of sounds/words/phrases, blocks between or within words, and prolonging of a sound. In an effort to avoid disfluencies some speakers develop physical and verbal reactions such as throat clearing, body movements, or facial grimacing. Avoidance behaviours may lead to not saying certain word or sentences, and maybe avoiding specific situations all together. 

What a conversation partner hears or sees is only part of it. Fluency disorders are often associated with emotional symptoms, such as feeling uncomfortable and anxiety about talking. The impacts can be intense, leading to difficulties talking to people, starting a new job, making phone calls, and difficulties in any situation where speaking is required.

For more information about stuttering check out this link:

https://www.cheo.on.ca/en/resources-and-support/p6274.aspx

What can SLP do?

A Speech Language Pathologist is trained to assess fluency disorders and create a treatment plan that will reach the client’s goals. A fluency assessment involves collecting language samples from 1:1 conversation, from reading a few paragraphs, and any recordings the client brings. During the stuttering assessment the SLP will also explore the impact of stuttering on a person’s life. Through a combination of standardized tests, forms, and conversation, the SLP can collect enough information to write a report describing the stuttering at that point in time. 

Therapy for fluency disorders must be individualized, taking into account the type and frequency of stuttering, the emotional impact, and the activity limitations it causes.  Approaches to treating stuttering may focus on just those instances where stuttering takes place, practicing so it’s easier to get through. Or it can focus on speech in general, practicing fluency techniques in the clinic and gradually implementing into everyday speech. 

Why call me?

Working with people who stutter at different stages of life I’ve gotten to learn the various ways each person deals with it. Ultimately, coming to work with me, something occurred where they found the techniques they developed no longer suited their needs. Despite the increasing awareness of stuttering as verbal diversity, it is still not understood by many. I work hard to create an environment where you can remove shame by improving self-awareness and acceptance. 

During our 1:1 time we will practice speech activities with the greatest impact for the type of stuttering you have. I create resources that you take/download to continue practicing on your own. We will discuss recent and distant experiences, plotting a path to increasing speaking confidence for different scenarios. As stuttering can be life-long, we will focus on long-term fluency building. Send me an email so we can figure out a plan to make it manageable.