I am one of many people who are unfortunate enough to develop a speech impediment in childhood. This article describes why these impediments may occur and how I went about achieving fluency. For the purpose of this article, I concentrate on the speech impediment known as stuttering. There are many reasons why people may develop a stutter, it can be as a result of bullying from school, an over aggressive member of the family, a shock reaction to an event such as a car crash, or it could be passed down from another member of the family who has a stutter. I have met many people who stutter as I now help people to achieve fluency as a career. I always ask them to talk about how and why their stutter started. The reasons above are the type of answers I receive. Stuttering normally originates in childhood and nine out of ten people who stutter are men. Around 1% of the population has a stutter according to recent reports. I have now managed to beat my stutter which had basically ruined my life for eighteen years. When I had a stutter, I found it difficult to say certain words beginning with certain letters. I would always avoid these words or I would think of an alternative word to say. Aged twenty-two I decided it was time to try to overcome my communication problems. I started to observe what I called very good fluent talkers, I was watching and trying to work out how they were talking and breathing. I also tried to find differances between their speech and my own. I also started to read books about things like, positive thinking and mind over matter as I also realised I needed to change the way I was thinking. After nearly a year of working and practicing very hard, I managed to overcome my stutter, much to my relief. |
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