You can talk to your pet without stuttering

Many people who stutter find that they talk just fine when talking to their pet or reading out loud when by themselves. This has led some to a career involving animals. Ted Hoagland enjoyed working with the big cats with a circus.

"If you can't talk to people," he said he learned, growing up, "you spend a lot of time with your dog, who you are able to talk to. You become very close to pets, and perhaps become an observer of wildlife. And you strengthen your natural intuition and your so-called sixth sense, your second nature, which other people don't need for happiness or survival." Edward “Ted” Hoagland (who stutters)

Advice to those who stutter

A great book - Advice to Those Who Stutter - is online at http://www.stutteringhelp.org/Portals/English/book0009_may2010.pdf

Advice to Those Who Stutter

The Stuttering Foundation of America has posted part of their book "Advice to Those Who Stutter" on this page http://www.stutteringhelp.org/default.aspx?tabindex=794&tabid=807 of their web site. There are so many helpful tips in this one page that you should read it very slowly and absorb each tidbit of advice.

"There are ways that you can stutter more easily, which sound better and make you more comfortable with your speech, and make a better impression on your listener. Listeners react to the way you appear to be reacting to yourself. If you seem to be tense, panicky, and out of control, they will also feel tense, to which you react by becoming more tense and hurried yourself. It’s a circular process that you can learn to control."

Helping a child who stutters

Dr. Ramig and Dr. Murphy give some helpful ways to help a child who stutters at http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/isad11/papers/therapy11/murphy11.html

Children need to learn some coping techniques while they are young so they "change some of the learned avoidant reactions that often develop as a result of the unpleasantness of stuttering." I wonder if many of the adult stutterers would not stutter as badly if they had gotten professional help when they were young, if their parents and teachers had learned how to help them, and if they had not acquired some of the habits of avoidance and secondary behaviors that most people who stutter seem to get.

From posts that I have read online, I feel that many young people who go to a speech therapist don't get much out of it because they don't really want to be there. They don't want to have to leave their regular class in school to go to therapy. If you aren't really wanting to be in therapy at the time, how can you get anything out of it?

Being able to verbalize the fact that you stutter, being able to talk about it to your family, and being able to express your feelings about stuttering is one of the big first steps to improving your speech. Anyone who stutters or who has lived with someone who stutters will tell you that stuttering is worse if you are trying NOT to stutter. If a child knows that a parent is embarrassed by their stuttering, he/she will try not to stutter or will just stop talking. The Stuttering Foundation (www.stutteringhelp.org) has a brochure to help parents who have a child who stutters. They have books, online help, DVDs, and other material to help all ages. Dr. Ramig is coauthor of some of the materials.