When I was a kid I would be very afraid when we had guests at home, because I stammered, says Rahul Shukla, 28 years old, accountant। By adolescent years, I had become a loner and shunned company of friends and relatives। My approach changed when I visited a speech pathologist, who helped me overcome stammering. Gradually, I regained confidence. I do stammer at times, when I am under too much of stress. When that happens, I know that I need a break from whatever I am doing and concentrate on my breathing to deflate stress.
Stammering is an obstacle that affects the verbal communication abilities of a significant proportion of the population within our community। And there is no denying the fact that it can become a serious issue, but if handled appropriately one can definitely overcome stammering, informs Dr Vijay Aggarwal, Speech Pathologist at AIIMS।
Basic causes:
Stammering usually begins between 2 and 5 years old. This is the time when a child's language skills are developing and he uses new words, expresses new ideas in longer sentences, and also asks questions. The child suddenly stops in between while he is talking or narrating an incident and struggles with a word. The common reaction is to interject and help the child with the word or to make fun of him. Both the approaches are wrong, as they erode self confidence of the child.
Bilingual Problems: For some children, learning two languages at the same time can be difficult to manage and it impacts their fluency, making them stammer.
Social and Environmental Factors: In everyday living kids have to handle a lot of stress too. In such moments kids who are otherwise normal, tend to stammer.
Genetics: The same way we inherit our eye colour, height or personality trait from our parents and grandparents, we inherit stammering too. It can be a combination of nature and nurture.
Gender: Males are four times vulnerable than female. That’s the reason you may find a boy mispronouncing words more than a girl.
Oral motor skills like planning and co-ordination of the movements of articulation - tongue, jaw, voice box, etc। also play a vital role in stammering. Some research studies have shown differences in the oral skills of some people who stammer - these may be slower or less coordinated.
Emotional disturbances: Stammering can be an indication that the kid is not able to cope with the environment around him. He may be bullied or is facing sexual trauma, or feels neglected. Talk to your child to get the real picture.
How to overcome
It’s important to accept that you have a problem and work on it consciously, tell experts. Do not let it affect your confidence or self-esteem. Worrying about it is only going to increase the problem. So first analyze and then act.
If the reason is emotional, then address the root cause. Talk to the person to gauge what’s hurting him. Help him come out of his shell. Appreciate his achievements. Bit by bit build his confidence and this will help him overcome stammering.
Delayed speech and language development may be associated with hearing impairment, mental retardation, autism, cerebral palsy, cleft palate and other neuro-psychological disorders। Hence, if your child is not able to speak well, get him evaluated by a doctor.
Treatment plan
Speech therapy is highly recommended for stammering/stuttering treatment, where in one can expect improvement in results by 90% in about 20 sittings time; sittings can be daily or weekly or even twice in a week. The therapy includes:
a) Three hours of speech therapy sessions, audio-video recordings, speech practices with most advanced “Professionally Licensed Softwares”,
b) Complete psycho-speech therapy programme under guidance and supervision of your speech therapist, psychologist
c) Tele-therapy including phonetics, vocal and fluency exercises
d) Group discussions
e) Unlimited follow up support
f) E-mail consultation
Echo earpiece. Some s find that they can sing along with others, and that their stammer is not as bad when they are with a lot of people all talking together in the same room. To reproduce this effect, an earpiece has been developed that sends out an echo of the user’s voice. It helps to ‘unblock’ the impediment to speech. According to the British Stammering Association, it helps some people but not all.
But remember that in spite of all these, stammering may not cease permanently. What is important is the smartness to stylize stammering, which will actually be beneficial to the individual. Stylizing stammering in itself is a different concept which has to be dwelled in depth separately.
Don't hope for medicines. Although some drugs are available in the market but various studies have shown that drug treatment does not truly help.
Most importantly, stammering can’t get treated on its own. You have to work on it, as it can scar your child.
By Priya Singh
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