Info about Stuttering
Stuttering and how to tackle it?
Stuttering is a speech disorder that affects the way a person speaks. The problem is that the person is not able to string the syllables together normally. Most times they repeat a syllable or take longer than usual to pronounce it. Typically when a person stutters, you would also see their eyes flicker or lips tremble; these are common characteristics of the stuttering.
While stuttering in itself is not a big problem, what it does to the person can be quite drastic. Not being able to communicate with people normally can be quite demoralising to the person. This sometimes pushes them into their cocoon and they have reduced social interaction. Fortunately with some treatment and assistance, the stuttering problems can be solved.
• What are the causes of stuttering?
There are many reasons why people tend to stutter. These can be classified into two main categories:
Developmental stutter: This typically affects around 5% of the children. When the child starts to learn to speak, there may be problems comprehending the words and pronouncing them properly. This leads to stuttering. This is common and with time in most children this would go away too. It is more of a transitioning phase. It is generally believed that when the child’s verbal skills exceed the ability to speak, it could lead to stuttering.
Neurogenic Stuttering: This is caused typically after a huge shock to the brain or the body. Heart stroke, brain injury are common reasons why people start to stutter in later life. This happens because after the incident the brain has a tough time trying to coordinate various things. As a result it may not be able to link the thoughts with the words.
• Psychogenic stuttering: this is not a natural form of stuttering. This happens with a person is excessively abused emotionally or physically. Interestingly, for a long time people believed that stuttering was always psychogenic, but research has proved that is not the case.
• Treatment for Stuttering
There are many solutions that have come up that can help cure stuttering. The most basic solution is to attend therapies. These speech therapy solutions will help start with single syllables and eventually go to simple words and finally complex words and sentences. This is a very effective way of regaining normal speech.
Though there are no specific drugs to cure stuttering as such, there are many anti-anxiety drugs, anti-depressants that have be used to great effect in helping people get rid of the stutter in their speech. However, all anti-anxiety drugs have some side effects, especially with prolonged use. So one must be very careful while administering these medications.
There are some innovative electronic solutions to this problem too. It is well known that people tend to stutter less when they speak in unison with other people. There are electronic devices, similar to heading aids that help reproduce the speech in low volume for the person stuttering to hear. As a result, the person gets a feeling of speaking in a group which reduced stuttering.