Ask HN: Does anyone here suffer from a speech impediment?

Are your children in speech therapy? If not, I highly recommend having them see a professional at least once a week.

One of the other things that really helped me when I was younger was being active in sports. When playing sports you don't have to talk, you just run around and play. It also helps to develop friendships, friends that won't care about any disfluency.

Another thing is practice, kids who stutter are extremely terrified of giving speeches in front of other kids (eg. oral presentations). Do your best to know if they having any speaking commitments coming up and help them prepare by practicing with them. If can make a huge difference. You can try to identify where they might trip up and help them work through it. I can tell you from experience that knowing exactly what you are going to say makes it less likely that you will stutter / block.

The last thing is to actually alter your speech around them, speak slowly and consistently while pausing naturally to show them that it is perfectly normal and even preferred to speaking quickly and getting mixed up.

I'm sure you'll find this fascinating -

Tom Scott - Why Jonathan Ross Can't Pronounce His Rs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld3A3QCpXd4

As a kid I had a stutter, sometimes it still emerges now when talking passionately about something, and a few other situations. But gee I hated speaking in front of the class at school. Didn't seem fair I had to do it! But I never talked to anyone about my problem, which I'd do in 2 seconds if I lived that over again. (Same with bullying) I think maybe it was to do with very low self-esteem. And I was very shy, self-conscious.

Something that comes to mind is a story I heard about George Clooney - in the beginning he was having no luck at auditions. So he decided to switch from a mentality of "Please help me, please give me what I want" to "I'm here because I have something unique to offer you and the production", which made all the difference. I think that would work in many difficult situations for stuttering and fear of public speaking. One time I had to talk in front of the class about my long holiday in Europe, it wasn't a problem. (Except when my throat cracked after speaking for so long! hehe.) Because I was the one with something to offer them, I guess.

Mainly, get some expert help, read books about it. Watch The King's Speech. Cause it is unpleasant, for you and others. More commonly I hear in people's speech what seems undiagnosed dyslexia - a combination of mixing terms, using wrong words, not being able to pronounce words.

Yep. Stutter and stammer since childhood. It does cause people not taking me seriously. It's lesser in intensity though.

I have a mild stutter, I generally just call it a "vocal catch" because it's usually getting stuck and not being able to produce a sound instead of repeating a syllable. Usually only happens a couple times a day during normal conversation. More so when emotional.

IM is awesome. Very glad that's a thing.

I have a penchant for looking up a new word's synonyms. Which usually results in having a couple of "escape hatches" if I feel myself getting caught up. Sometimes, however, that's not the case and I just have to accept that I'm getting tripped up. At that point I'll audibly sigh, which usually un-sticks me enough to proceed.

When I give presentations, they are usually to my team. I've explained to everyone and they are understanding (I also asked them to not fill in the word they think I'm trying to say). There's mutual respect and they all patiently wait when it happens. Having that understanding really reduces the stress and makes presenting not painful.