Those Who Stutter Can Find Relief Using Modern Speech Therapy Methods

          If you ever hear someone getting tripped up over their words and struggling to say something, the reason could be any number of things: nervousness, stress, or even simply not knowing what they want to say.  It could be a little deeper than that, however.  The person might stutter, which is a speech disorder that affects about 1% of the US population in which the speaker’s words may be repeated or last longer than normal.  For being one of the more frequent speech disorders though, the average person may not know much about stuttering. 

Based on pop culture, students think speech therapy helps 

           If you were asked to name someone that stutters, who would you name? Since stutterers sometimes hide themselves, you may need to turn to television and movies. Porky Pig, Joe Biden, and Marilyn Monroe are all great answers, but a topical answer would be King George VI, the subject of the recent Academy Award winning film The King’s Speech.  In the movie, the King has a severe stutter, but meets with a speech therapist and is eventually able to make a radio broadcast to his country. From the portrayal of speech therapy in the movie, Georgia McClure and Connor Gibb, both students at the University of Maryland, believe that speech therapy works and, in particular, the King’s work with Mr. Logue was a success.

listen to ‘Georgia says that the King's Speech methods worked’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Connor thinks therapy works’ on Audioboo

          There is difference between the media’s portrayal of the subject and what happens in real life, however; the case of King George is an extreme on the stuttering spectrum, and the methods Logue uses are unique to getting the King through the speech.  Because of that difference, some readers may not know that while cursing to his heart’s content allowed King George to destress, it wouldn’t help a stutterer talk much smoother in the real world.  There are ways to help a stutterer though, and they are based on more recent discoveries to aid in every day communication.

Many options are currently available for stutterers, such as fluency techniques and fear reduction

          Speech therapy for adults who stutter falls into three categories: operant therapy, fluency shaping, and stuttering modification.  Many approaches are required because each stutterer is different and will need a different technique to streamline their speech. They all work toward the same goals however: to provide comfort with spontaneous communication, to allow for controlled fluency, and to cultivate a responsibility for change and growth.

          The first of the three approaches, operant therapy, is based on the research of B.F. Skinner in the 1930s and works to increase fluency through positive reinforcement.  When a client exhibits fluent speech, they are given praise, and when they show stuttering, slight negative reinforcement. The idea is that eventually the client will exhibit their desired speech pattern after repeated conditioning. 

          Fluency shaping, the second of the three methods, gives the client control of the way they talk; it teaches techniques to speak smoother such as slowing the rate of speech, breathing management, monotone speaking, and easy onsets, which are a way to ease yourself onto a word rather than stutter. This method gives the speaker a fast way to not stutter; when they do not want to stutter, they can change their speech in a way that avoids the disfluencies.  However, the method is criticized that the resulting speech does not sounds like normal speech, sometimes sounding slow or airy.  Fluency shaping is employed by the three week intensive therapy program at the American Institute for Stuttering in New York.

          The final approach, stuttering modification, is the most in depth; it attempts to modify the moment a stutter happens as well as the root of many problems, the thoughts and fear that can trigger stress and shame in a person who stutters.  The therapy labels the positive techniques of fluency shaping as negative “tricks” to avoid stuttering that should be reduced in speech, and focuses heavily on self-acceptance of being a person who stutters and embracing feared situations.  Vivian Sisskin, an instructor in the University of Maryland Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, says that struggle in speech is actually caused by attempting to avoid struggling, a very paradoxical phenomenon.  

          She encourages her clients, through the stuttering modification method offered at the clinic on the College Park campus, to “desensitize” to their stuttering through exercises that allow the client to show their stuttering to others, such as asking for directions and voluntarily stuttering.  Sisskin says that, as backward as it may sound, you must “stutter your way out of stuttering.”

Stuttering Modification Method is hard to measure, but the results are impressive

          Each of the three methods of speech therapy, operant, fluency shaping, and stuttering modification, is measured on a different scale.  All of the methods work towards the same goal of comfortable speech, as Sisskin explains, but can be distinguished in their reports.

         Operant therapy looks at whether the client shows stuttering and struggle or not, and fluency shaping is measured by how smooth the client’s speech is compared to when he first entered therapy.  The method can be given a percentage of success, such as 80% of disfluencies removed.  Sisskin questions, however, how truly successful these methods are, whether the client is prone to an easy relapse into old stuttering habits.  While fluency shaping provides a definite percentage of success, stuttering modification, with its multilayered approach, is much harder to measure.  As a client removes their “tricks” to hide stuttering, they will sound less fluent than before, but it is a step in the process to eventually speak more smoothly and with comfort.  The method also focuses on the client’s thought process and situational avoidance, which is qualitative and cannot be easily measured, which is why, Sisskin says, of the three methods, it is the least supported by scientific research.  Looking at the results, however, provides a sense of the power of stuttering modification.  Many past clients of the clinic are now in high profile jobs as lawyers and actors, and are facing situations that they once feared with pride and relatively comfortable speech.

          Speech therapy is a highly individualized item, and some options will be better suited for each person who stutters.  In the end though, the goal is to make a stutterer’s life easier and more comfortable, which is the real success, and there are success stories from users of each method. As for King George, Sisskin describes the King’s techniques as “strategies for effective speech,” and questions whether the tricks would translate to his everyday interactions.  

From an overcoming fear perspective, however, the King steps up to the microphone and delivers the speech, so we can still consider his Speech a success.