INFORMATION
What Is Stammering?
Stammering is an interrupted way of speaking, blocking of speech or repetition of the same letter or word. If the normal flow of speech is hampered in any way, it is called stammering. There is a wrong belief amongst a section of the people that stammering means severe speech problem, but in reality, stammering may be minor, medium or severe.There is no difference between stammering and stuttering. Stammering is commonly used in UK and India. Stuttering is the term used in US and some other countries. Incorrect pronunciation of sounds or words is not stammering, it is called lisping.
Stammering may be in the form of mind block, hesitation, blocking, taking more time to utter any word, repeating any particular starting sound or the word itself, elongating words more than normal and forceful sound due to unnecessary excessive exhalation. It is an in-coordination among respiratory, vocal cords and articulatory mechanisms. Stammering is speech which is hesitant, stumbling, tense or jerky to the extent that it causes anxiety to the speaker.
Although the basic factors for getting stammering problem are 60% to 70% same, no two person stammer in the same way. The nature of stammering always varies from person to person, time to time. It may increase or decrease drastically according to circumstances, people, differences in mindset, change of mood, etc. It is never the same at all times because the extent of stammering depends on one’s mindset, level of self confidence, specific feared situations, whether things are going as per person’s expectations, etc. Even with the same set of persons and identical situations, sometimes you speak better and at other times stammering happens more.
The main problem is that when stammering comes frequently and severely, your speech mechanism is in a very disorderly state. For speaking fluently for a long time, all the speech muscles and organs along with regular inflow and outflow of breathing should function smoothly at the same time. Just a small in-coordination of one of the organs may result in disfluency of speech. You have to go through a hard struggle to utter the words. But the fact is that the more the struggling behaviour to communicate, the more is the problem. Sometimes stammering vanishes for a short span of time and again comes back in the usual form. Along with the normal problems, when many facial distortions, secondary abnormal symptoms, problems with specific conscious words, etc. occur, to speak in a normal and spontaneous flow remains a distant dream.
The good news is that stammering is not a disease. There is nothing wrong with the tongue, throat or any other speech organs. When you speak alone or sing, you do not stammer. Sometimes you can talk very fluently. It means that it is purely a bad habitual and psychological problem and any bad habit can be cured with a right approach to tackle the problem.
What causes stammering
Stammering develops mostly from the early age of a person. It caused by multiple factors and their interactions. Some of the factors that can lead to the development of stammering are :
- Imitation of other stammering persons either in the family or outside.
- An after effect of certain serious illness.
- Feeling of insecurity in the early age.
- Strict, rude & rough guardianship.
- Sudden physical or mental shock.
- Shy or introvert nature from childhood.
- Very fast speaking habit.
- Parental fights and misunderstandings.
- Disturbances and quarrel in the family.
- Fast thought process.
- Lack of co-ordination between thinking & speaking.
- Stiff competition in all spheres of life.
- If one is bilingual or multilingual, confusion may occur to the child while speaking.
- Side effects of strong medicine.
- Being subjected to tremendous fear and tension from childhood.
- If the child is left alone for some time without parents or familiar people.
- When a second child is born in the family.
- Seeing horrifying scenes in real life or in movies.
- If the child is weak or sickly.
- When pressurised by parents to achieve difficult and high targets.
- When forcibly changing from left handed behaviour to right-handed behaviour.
- The child tries to attract attention and stammers when neglected.
- If the teacher is strict and the child is very scared.
- Humiliation in front of friends and class mates.
- If one is frightened of every little thing.
- Hurting one’s head due to some accident.
- If parents and family members all talk very fast, the child is unable to compete with their speed and thus falters.
- And many more factors can lead to stammering.
Whatever may be the reason for developing stammering, it occurs now due to uncontrolled excitement, tension, fear, nervousness, hesitation, anticipation of blocking, faulty way of breathing, very fast speaking habit, lack of confidence and courage to speak.
How does stammering develop?
In most of the cases, stammering develops from an early age (from 3 to 10 years). Neither does it start by birth nor is there any physical defect. A child learns to speak normally first and then may start to develop stammering. A number of factors are responsible for its occurrence, some of which are given in the previous section what-causes-stammering. It usually starts with minor problems but gradually complicates due to certain circumstances, ignorance, unconducive environment and wrong parenting.
When a child begins to stammer, the family members and others draw the attention of the child to it and make the child conscious of his disfluency. The child, at this stage, is not mature enough to deal with this sudden problem and the constant awareness of the difficulty makes it even worse. Different advices and guidance from an array of people makes the child confused as to what to follow and what not.
The child feels guilty and helpless if the parents are over-anxious, sad and dejected. The problem gets triggered if they discuss these problems in front of the child. So the child starts hiding it by avoiding, substituting, hesitating and the confidence level dips down gradually. There is a lack of co-ordination between thought and speech as the child is battling in his mind to cover up his problem. Fear, nervousness and tension develop with the constant anticipation of blocking. Slowly the problem becomes so acute that the child becomes branded as a ‘STAMMERER’ for life.
Naturally depression, dejection and inferiority complex encircle the child. Being small, they are unable to express their feelings. They want to express so many things but pulls back because of the fear and anticipation of problem. They are caught in the vicious cycle of being subjected to teasing, mockery, humiliation and under-estimation. Their negative beliefs and pessimistic thoughts get pampered. With the passage of time, the initially minor problem worsens and the child loses confidence in himself that their problem cannot be cured.
All these things which start in the childhood continue to be a lifelong problem. But you don’t have to suffer any more because stammering is completely curable at any age.
Difficulties Faced by stammering persons
Stammering is something seldom understood and rarely have people shown their concern for people suffering from it. Since it does not kill a person or affect the major internal body organs, it is not taken seriously. To others, stammering is a joke they can tease and laugh about but only a stammering person knows what they are going through because of their stammering.
- Even after knowing better than most of the people, you cannot express your knowledge, people consider you to be dull & incompetent.
- Stammering leads to depression, tension, frustration, pessimism and you develops inferiority complex and ultimately lose all hope & ambition in life and often think of committing suicide.
- Due to poor communication with examiner, marks obtained in oral exams are less even if you are prepared very well.
- You always have to take the help of others to go anywhere or meet anybody, so you do not become self-sufficient or independent.
- Due to this problem, you get easily irritated and annoyed, thus losing your cool calm and composure.
- During social functions & marriage gatherings, you try to avoid people & they treat you as unsocial because of your inability to interact.
- You are not able to ask questions or clarify doubts in class & hence have to remain ignorant in some topics.
- You often do not get due credit & appreciation for the hard sincere & honest work that you have done.
- To take up any challenging task is very difficult for you because of constant fear & lack of confidence.
- To participate in a quiz contest, elocution or perform in the stage is very difficult.
- In most of the cases you admit your inability & have to settle for a petty job that is much less dignified compared to your qualification.
- You have definitely missed or are missing the beautiful school life which other students happily & cheerfully enjoy by participating in all extracurricular activities.
- To meet top people for important work, a lot of tension mounts making it problematic to discuss freely.
- In spite of having everything in life because of this disfluency of speech, your dreams always remain unfulfilled.
The bottom line is : Your deep knowledge, very good intellectual ability, creative ideas, good aptitude skill & excellent academic & other records are wasted unless you are capable enough to communicate very well, display pleasing and attractive personality to command leadership. Today these things are absolutely necessary to excel in life. Whatever may be the difficulties and hurdles you have been facing, don’t worry! Immediately join my course.
There is no power on the EARTH to stop you from speaking NORMALLY, FLUENTLY & CONFIDENTLY.
Status of stammering persons
It is very unfortunate that the status of stammering persons is extremely pathetic and painful. They are being subjected to teasing, humiliation, underestimation, neglect and ill-treatment everywhere. Sometimes they are ignored, made fun of and even tortured. In the society, people misunderstand them, do not respect them and stammering persons are exploited in various ways. They are often victims of cheating, bullying and injustice because they cannot protest. People stereotype stammering persons as dull, foolish, unsmart, incompetent, timid and other similar negative things.
In short, the stammering persons are very much deprived of leading a normal and respectable life. They are leading a life full of frustration, depression and hopelessness, wandering through life aim-less and goal-less. In reality, stammering persons are more intelligent, creative, imaginative and have fast thought process. It is frustrating to see them underachieving and being under-rewarded compared to their skills and talents.
Moreover they face such discouragement that they feel unaccepted in their own families and friend circles. Their relatives and friends may often try to hide the fact from the society that are related to them or even know them. Since that love, support and encouragement in life is lost, they are left with just loneliness, unhappiness, hopelessness, helplessness, frustration and feelings of worthlessness, which can all lead to suicide attempts. Stammering persons are not just discriminated against by their family, friends or society, but also by themselves. They view themselves as “diseased”, “handicapped”, incapable, worthless and undeserving of good things in life because of their stammering problem and their repeated failures to utilize opportunities and shine.
Famous people with stammering
Swami Vivekananda, in his soul-stirring words, once said, “Stand up, be bold and strong, have faith in yourself. Know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength you need is within you.” Be firm that we don’t want any sympathy, favour or kindness from anybody. Now the time has come to prove to the world that we have got the best talent, skill and capability. History proves the fact. Did you know that these famous had stammering and yet they became famous by expressing their thoughts?
- Moses from Bible
- Demosthenes, the Greek orator
- Aesop, the Greek story-teller
- Claudius, the Roman king
- Aristotle, the Greek philosopher
- King George VI of England
- Isaac Newton, the physicist
- Somerset Maugham, the writer
- Samuel L Jackson, the actor
- Lewis Carroll, the writer
- Marilyn Monroe, the singer and actress
- Winston Churchill, the Nobel laureate and political leader
- Bruce Willis, the Hollywood actor
- James Earl Jones, the actor and theatre personality
- Jack Welch, the former CEO of General ElectricCompany(GE)
- Nicole Kidman, the Hollywood actress
- Tiger Woods, the golfer
- Pritam, the music director
- Hrithik Roshan, the Bollywood actor
- And the list goes on…
I believe that you also have the full right and all the necessary qualities and the potential to transform yourself into a fluent confident and an excellent speaker within a short period. I have already proved it several thousand times. The only thing you need is the link with me to cure stammering. Now that the link has been established.
LET THE REAL POSITIVE TURNING POINT OF YOUR LIFE START NOW !
Importance of good communication skills
Excellent communication skill is an absolute and vital necessity to reach great heights of success, be it in your studies, friends circle, career, interviews, job, service, business, etc. No matter how learned or wise you are, whatever be the extent of your knowledge or how innovative the ideas filled in your mind, you will be totally powerless, completely ineffective and absolutely handicapped if you cannot transmit your ideas and communicate your thoughts to others in a firm, crisp, clear and convincing manner. Most successful people possess the quality to communicate according to the need of the situation and market themselves and their ideas well.
When a child goes for admission to any school, the interview process is a very important part of selection. If the teachers and principals come to know about the child’s stammering, they might refuse to give admission to the child, despite good marks or academic performance. The school authorities or other parents may also refuse a seat to the child, thinking that other children should not imitate and learn to stammer. Some children with stammering may even be given a Transfer Certificate because of their problem. Even if the child manages to get through admissions, the teachers and classmates make their life hell with unjust punishments, taunts, teasing, humiliation and social isolation. So the biggest mistake one usually makes is to wait for stammering to get cured on its own naturally. As a result of this wrong belief, a stammering person’s biggest part of the life is finished.
Speech is the most vital skill of communication for people of all ages. They are a medium of communication and reflect the cultural and environmental influences of your personality. In this modern era, effective public speaking acts as a bonanza and makes a remarkable impact on your success and failure. When you cultivate the ability to communicate well, it will be your greatest asset and add effectiveness to your professional and personal life. In spite of getting excellent education and other facilities, unless you take prompt steps to cure your stammering everything will be wasted. So please take stammering cure as a first priority since the benefits of a transformed stammering-free life is priceless.
So the biggest mistake one usually makes is to wait for stammering to get cured on its own naturally. As a result of this wrong belief, a stammering person’s biggest part of the life is finished. Hence it is right time for parents to take action and immediately join their child for the course and give them the gift of a new and successful life. Do not make the mistake of not joining the course because of shyness. When you join the course and interact with everybody automatically you will gain courage to mingle with others and such feelings of shame will go. There is no age limit for the cure. Cure is for all ages. Enjoy the rest of your life by speaking fluently and confidently and feel the magic of stammering-free life.
Make The Rest Of Your Life The Best Of Your Life !
FAQ
Most frequent questions and answers
The general idea that prevails in the minds of maximum stammering persons is that “stammering is a disease; there must be some physical defect or disorder”. That is why it is considered incurable. This is quite natural as many people have tried and failed to relieve themselves of this problem as they don’t understand the actual root of the problem. The various ineffective suggestions and solutions lead to further frustration and helplessness and they become passive sufferers, accepting it to be a life-long curse that they have to live with for eternity.
Let me clarify the fact that ‘STAMMERING IS NOT A DISEASE’. It is a psychological and a bad habitual problem. It is psychological in the sense that it is there only in the mind and not in any of the speech organs. The bad habitual problem comes because of fear, nervousness, excitement, tension and anticipation of problems in the mind and the person tries to speak in a faulty manner. Neither it starts from birth nor is there any genetic problem. Your speaking machine is basically in perfect condition. You only have to make some adjustments in the operation of this system. Consider the fact that when you talk alone, you talk fluently. Most of the time, you have no problem talking with your close family members or even some friends. You can also sing perfectly. If it is a physical defect, the problem of speech would have been always everywhere irrespective of the situation, place and person.
The problem lies in the mind, not in the mouth. The way you think makes all the difference. If you allow negative thoughts and thoughts anticipating stammering more and more, then the problem becomes very complicated and it gets deep-rooted in your mind that stammering is not curable. Along with this, avoidance to speak, staying always in the shell, depressed mood, negative and pessimistic thoughts increase the problem rapidly. When this state of mind continues for several years, the entire speech mechanism is in a disorderly and disorganized manner. Negative and pessimistic thoughts start commanding your mind. All this definitely makes a simple problem a very complicated life-long problem.
Stammering is not the same always. Sometimes you may notice more stammering like when :
- Telling your name
- Answering sudden questions
- Talking to strangers
- Responding in school and college, especially while answering attendance
- Speaking before and during exams due to fear & tension
- Answering oral exams or viva
- Interacting with seniors and people of authority
- Appearing for interviews
- Speaking over the telephone
- Buying tickets & at enquiry counters in railway & bus station
- During an emergency situation
- During weakness, illness, tiredness & hunger
- Speaking in social gatherings
- While suffering from cold & cough
- Speaking before a mass gathering
- With parents who are very strict
- Feeling upset and depressed
- During a clash or quarrel with others
- Anybody challenges and accuses you
- While cracking jokes
- Feeling over-excited, too emotional or overjoyed
- If confidence is low
- In a new and unknown environment
- If you are extremely frightened
- You are irritated and frustrated with life, etc.
At certain times and in certain situations, you may have noticed that stammering occurs less like :
- In a very relaxed, casual and happy mood
- When one achieves something like getting good results or winning an award
- When speaking with subordinates and lowly placed people
- If the other person is very sympathetic and caring
- With friends and family members and small children
- In a good phase of time
- If the parents guide properly regarding speech
- When other people’s reactions does not bother you, etc
Stammering generally develops from the childhood. A child learns to talk in a gradual manner. First the child listens to sounds and learns to respond to them. Then he tries to imitate and produce sounds which develops into short words. Then they learn broken words and finally frame smaller sentences. In this manner a child learns to speak. If some elders in the family are having this problem (may be a parent, brother or sister), after listening to or by imitating that person, a child may develop this bad habit. Sometimes two or three generations of stammering persons are found in a family because of this reason. All this makes the people believe that stammering must be due to heredity which is an absolutely wrong notion.
A section of people wrongly assume that the stammering problem is by birth. If the belief is based on these things, then the people become more frustrated, dejected and hopeless by thinking that it is a life time problem. They have to suffer as long as they are alive. In fact if hope is there everything is there. But if the situation is totally hopeless, everything is lost. Moreover, no factual knowledge can be gathered by the people due to lack of books, scientific literature for the lay persons, articles or other resources. Furthermore, they come to the conclusion that it is impossible to cure; it is a curse from God or a result of bad Karma of past lives.
Plenty of “free advices”, wrong and untrue information are poured in from various sections of “not-so-knowledgeable” people, whose wrong directions and discouraging statements make a stammering person totally frustrated and hopeless. He is forced to believe that there is no hope, no cure and only a dark future awaits him. They become more and more depressed, lose enthusiasm in life and miss out on all the pleasures of life. Unfortunately, very few people are there to motivate them and offer correct guidance to go ahead in life.
But the fact of the matter is that stammering is not a disease. Neither is it by birth nor due to any physical defect or disorder. It is purely a psychological and a bad habitual problem.
Stammering generally starts early in childhood and rarely in adolescence or early adulthood. Most specialists are in favour of advising you to wait till the stammering gets cured naturally and ask you not to get worried. But these problems can grow into complicated severe speech disfluencies, which may be a lot more difficult to cure when it has crystallized in the child’s speech system for years. I am against this stream of thought. I believe that it is better to treat the problem instantly when it starts. In my Centre, more than 60% of the students belong to the age group of 18-25 years. When they get cured so easily and speak fluently and confidently after attending our course, their parents regret why they did not join the Course earlier. Had they joined earlier, their children would have had a more enjoyable, constructive and successful student life much earlier.
Most of the specialists in India surprisingly comment that ‘Ignore the problem, it will be cured by itself when you grow up – it is a passing phase’. It is not that stammering once developed is not curable at all naturally. But the percentage is so negligible that it is a gamble to wait for that lucky chance to come. More importantly, if luckily anyone gets cured at a later age like in 20’s or 30’s or later, then so many golden years of one’s life become a nightmare. This time will never come back and there is no way to compensate for it. The formative period of anybody’s life – childhood, school life, adolescence, college life and so on are the stages in which to build up one’s personality, skill and other essential qualities for a bright life and a successful career. But during those vital periods, if one is forced to stay in the shell, avoiding people and engage in all other self-defeatist behaviour, naturally it affects one’s success and achievement in life. Do not postpone, act immediately to overcome this major issue of your speech.
So without waiting for the fortunate day when it may or may not get cured on its own, take immediate action to solve the most complicated problem of a person’s life – stammering.
I believe, to solve a particular problem including stammering, there can be several ways. I am absolutely open. If some professionals fail to find a solution for it, it does not guarantee that stammering, which is a psychological and bad habitual problem, not a physical defect or disorder, is incurable. Ignore and avoid all discouraging, demotivating, less knowledgeable and misleading persons and websites. Their ‘FREE ADVICES’ may spoil your life. On the other hand, I am highly successful in curing stammering easily and surely using my self developed techniques and practices since more than 25 years. It is my lone battle against one of the oldest (4000 years old) and the most neglected and ignored problems in the world.
A revolution in the ever-neglected and ignored field of stammering cure.
It can quite easily be cured in the hand of a highly experienced, well-qualified, dedicated person who can actually guide you with the effective practices and techniques, understanding correctly the kind of problem you have and is inspirational and motivational. It is needless to say that an Ex-Stammerer is the right kind of person for doing all these quite effectively for they too have lived with what you are going through. If you like to get a Stammering-Free pleasant life, definitely take a serious initiative and immediate action to overcome this disfluency.
If you have the dream and vision to be great, YES! I have the techniques to make your dream a reality. The Earlier The Cure, Better The Life !