"" During my 12 yrs of experience as a speech therapist there have been a number of questions put to me by the stutterer,their parents and family members regarding stuttering.The exposure of attending the International Fluency Association's First and Second World Congress on Fluency Disorders has helped me in giving the worldwide consensus and the most appropriate answers to those questions ""
(Dr.Sajiv Adlakha)
Ques: Is stammering/stuttering a disease or a habit?
Ans : Stammering is not a disease,only a bad habit,developed mainly due to some psychological inadequacies in the young child's immediate environment.There is no physical defect or impairment in the speech mechanism.If one can talk without stuttering when he is alone or when not being heard or observed by others.If one can sing without any sign of faltering,it would be a fair assumption that he would be having no physical or organic defect causing the trouble.Actually all stutters have periods of fluency.
Ques: If science is so advanced then why is there no medicine to cure stuttering?
Ans : Since there is nothing physically wrong with the speech mechanism,all the so called medicines are 'placebos',which means that they have no direct bearing on the speech problem,but the stammerer 'thinks' that they work.Such medicines do not break the abnormal speaking habit.In fact,it can corrode the person's faith in an ultimate recovery
Ques: What should be done to overcome stuttering?
Ans : Continued Speech therapy clubbed with psycho therapy,backed by group therapy and followed up by maintenance therapy may be the only answer towards long term fluency
Ques:What is speech therapy?
Ans :Speech therapy is to work on the speech organs and exercising the muscles in order to establish the neuro muscular co-ordination.Stabilizing a rate of speech,which is acceptable in interaction and extempore.Speech is the main aspect in speech therapy.It is in fact probably impossible to stutter in any way at all without excessive muscular tension in some form or the other.
Ques:How long does it take to recover or be fluent?
Ans :To attain apparent fluency it does not take much time,maybe 2 months or so if regular therapy is undertaken.To maintain the fluent stage may vary from person to person depending upon the psychological pressure and the ability to take help from the environment for working on specific speech targets.
If the stutterer is going to change radically his accustomed manner of stuttering,he must work persistently and diligently over a long period of time.
The adult stutterer enters therapy.The first thing that he must understand is that stuttering as it is now was acquired over a period of time and that change is a Process which will be gradual and not sudden.I state confidently that continued speech therapy can bring a radical change in the person.
Ques:why some stutterersfind it more difficult to say one’s own name?
Ans :The name depicts the personality of a person.Over the years of stuttering the stutterer starts leading a dual personality.He wants to hide the stuttering from people and when asked to introduce himself,there is a personality conflict leading to a block.
“ “You will remain a stutterer as long as you pretend not to be one””
Ques:Can speech therapy be harmful?
Ans : I have not observed any negative effects of speech therapy.I have had cases where students have not responded as fast as one would like them to,but in every case,there has been some positive effect.
