Sunday, December 31, 2006

What are your New Year's wishes

What are your New Year's wishes with respect to stuttering???

My wishlist is:

1) write the article I was supposed to read.
2) Project X (secret).
3) Concentrate more on research again and write more research-oriented posts.

What do you want me to talk about more in the new year???

Monday, December 25, 2006

Happy X-X-X-mas!

Fluent when as fast as possible?

I am wondering how many people who stutter can speak more fluently when they speak as-fast-as-possible. I am able to speak relatively fluently when speaking as fast as possible (and fluent when I know what I will say), which is a bit paradoxical when you consider that I cant say some words easily when I speak at a normal rate...

Here is my observation:

very fast: relatively fluent
fast: more dysfluent
normal rate: dysfluent
slow: relatively fluent
very slow: fluent

My questions:
1) Is the performance of fluent speakers better at ultra-fast speed?
2) Why do stutterers seem to have more control when talking very fast?

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Stuttering jokes

Do you have any funny stuttering jokes? I know humour is very culture dependent. So tell me yours!

I was told this one 30 minutes ago:

Daddy, John said that he has a great-great-great-great-granddad! No, he is only stuttering you fool.


Or how about this one? My dad, master of insensitivity, told this one when I was 10. I was not very happy, but he was obviously oblivious to this fact. Today, I dont care if someone tells a stuttering joke.

The general tells the young soldier how to parachute: "Look it's easy, count until 3 and pull the cord." The soldier nods with the head, gets into the airplane, and jumps... The general and the rest are watching his descent. But, he is getting closer and closer to the ground, but the parachute hasnt opened yet... The general gets nervous, and screams: Pull the damn cord. Of course, the soldier cant hear... And then they watch him land luckily on a haystack... Everyone runs to the haystack and they hear: Ttt--three.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Jermain will beat them up for you

Has someone ever laughted about your stuttering? Made fun of you? Are you a kid or teenager that gets bullied?

Here is the TheStutteringBrain's solution. Contact Jermain! He will beat them up for you!


Jermain Taylor will fight to defend his Middleweight Championship title this Saturday, and he stutters.

Good Luck, Jermain!

Adrian, the King of Therapies

Upps, not many people entered the competition. I always thought every person who stuttered went to many different therapies... Or did I upset some people? Did I make some aware that they went to many different therapies but still stutter?

Anyway, I hereby nominate Adrian: he is the candidate with the most therapies, and the only one of the competition! :-)

His therapies:

1) Therapy with various school SLPs.
2) Private therapy with SLP 1 as a child. (This one videotaped me to point out all my speaking mistakes)
3) Private therapy with SLP 2 as a child.
4) Private therapy with SLP 3 as a child.
5) Group workshop with Martin Schwartz (airflow) as a teenager. An awful experience!
6) Private therapy with SLP as a teenager.
7) Hollins (Fluency Shaping) three week course in 97 (Roanoke, Va).
8) Hollins one week refresher in 98.
9) Hollins one week refresher in 99.
10) Private therapy with SLP (Tim Mackesey) including desentization, voluntary stuttering, pull outs, slides, NLP, etc. around 2001.
11) McGuire Program 1 (three days in Reno, NV) in 2004.
12) McGuire Program 2 (Galway, Ireland) in 2004.
13) Neurosemantics (NLP) five day workshop with Bob Bodenhamer (Charlotte, NC).
14) McGuire Program 3 (Reno, NV) in 2004.
15) Casa Futura DAF system in 2005.
16) McGuire Program 4 (Washington DC)in 2005.
17) McGuire Program 5 (Washington DC) in 2005.
18) McGuire Program 6 (Washington DC) in 2006.

Friday, December 08, 2006

Are you the King of Therapies?

TheStutteringBrain looks for the king or queen of therapies: Who has done the most therapies in his life?

Here is my challenge to you. You don't stand a chance!! :-)

1) GP in Esch (Luxembourg)
2) speech therapy in Esch (Luxembourg)
3) special kindergarten in Luxembourg-City
4) "natural healer" in Bavaria
5) psychologist I in Trier (Germany)
6) psychologist II in Luxembourg-City
7) post-block modification / fluency shaping at Indiana University (US)
8) short therapy in Canterbury (England)
9) post-block modification at City Lit London
10) post-block modification in Durham (Northern England)
11) hypnotherapy in Manchester
12) self-help group in London.
13) fluency shaping in Kassel (Germany): I
14) fluency shaping in Kassel (Germany): II

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

What happened to PEVOS?

PEVOS is a German project that collected speech samples and questionnaire from before and after therapy. I talked about PEVOS here.

Many therapists from different "schools" participated, but no final conclusion. The just-after therapy results were discussed at the conference in Montreal, but that's it.

I spoke to some insiders more than a year ago, because I was preparing a talk about therapy outcome research for the German stuttering association's yearly conference. They told me that the data collection phase is over, and analysis will be done soon.

But nothing has happened since. I have no clue what is going on. So I would like activate my German spies to report back to me! Do you have any information? :-)

I would be really interested in how the different therapies compare to each other one year after therapy! And I am sure all the therapists who participated would be interested, too!

Monday, December 04, 2006

Do therapists believe in their therapy?

To start with, therapists use the therapy that they "grew up with", very much like people practising the religion of their parents and community. Few change, and most stick to what they know best. They try to rationalise their choice of therapy, when in fact they adopted a therapy without rational decision making, and then put the arguments around it.

Most therapists (and more humans) want to get their job done and want certainty in their life. There is nothing more appealing than a set of steps that tells you exactly how to do therapy, and ensures you of its success. Why starting to ask questions and destroy the certainty of your world? Very few are critical.

Therapists need to be uncritical to some degree. They are forced to believe in the therapy even if they dont, because a therapist cannot influence a patient without believing the therapy. So many make themselves believe in the therapy.

Many do not seem to believe that the patients will become much more fluent. They are rather more realistic, and believe that patients "will get a lot out of it", especially on the communication, social, psychological level. In fact, they believe that this is much more important than speech. I wonder whether they do not have it upside down. In fact, they too believe that fluency is the most important, but because they know that it is much more difficult to achieve, they change around the goals, and say that actually communication is the more important. But what they actually unconsciously mean is "Fluency is the most important. But it is difficult, so lets start with the other stuff. But upps I cant say that to my patients, so I have to say that the other stuff IS more important".