Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why some people suffer from a stutter

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 128 posts

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#31

Post by amelius »

quercusa wrote: post #13
gee_totes wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the stress level affects the dopamine level and that affects the stutter? I have a stutter too and this was a very interesting article to add to my "head-canon" on why people stutter. My stutter is also affected by moods. Maybe we're living -- or rather, speaking -- on the edge of the brain-body connection.

I had a roommate with a stutter, but never when telling a joke, talking to the dog, or singing. We are way more complicated than we understand!

The singing part has been investigated:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996848/

> As illustrated in this paper, singing represents a promising therapeutic tool in a variety of neurological disorders. Singing is particularly useful in ameliorating some of the associated speech-motor difficulties because of features such as continuous voicing, decreased production rate, and increased awareness of individual phonemes. Although the precise mechanisms underlying the efficacy of singing remain largely unexplored, a number of hypotheses have been proposed

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#32

Post by berius »

I've had a stutter for as long as I can remember and have noticed a correlation between how nervous I am about speaking and how much I would stutter.

Eventually I just accepted that I will stutter at some point when talking and tried not to worry about it and my stuttering improved a lot. Like others have said here, I do believe anxiety and the fear of potentially stuttering will actually cause you to stutter more (at least in my case this was true).

One positive though is that I am very good at finding similar words to convey the same meaning when in mid-sentence if I feel a stutter is coming.

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#33

Post by mandeepj »

secondcoming wrote: post #7
matthewheath wrote: post #5

I have a stutter. I went to a speech and language therapist, which helped a little bit. For the longest time I couldn't say words like "Wednesday" (stuttering on the W) or even simple phrases like "Yes sir/ma'am" when at secondary school (I believe this is known as a "block", my mouth just wouldn't work; I froze up). I'm not entirely sure what helped me overcome the problem. If I'm relaxed, my speech is fluent. If I…

Interesting, I don't have a stutter but regularly have issues saying 'statistics' correctly.

It's a tough word with a lot of t's, and s'

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#34

Post by 2wrist »

Have a stutter too, I was in speech therapy from when I was 7, and one of the techniques that worked best was to focus on breathing and relaxation. When I blocked on words, the levels of tension in my body was/is extremely high. Specifically in my diaphragm, when there is tension, my chest is more rigid and the tension in mouth and tongue is so much stronger. So they had me focusing on relaxing my diaphragm which would allow the other tension to be less. So to focus on my breathing and being relaxed. (and yes I could sing fluidly, but my speech was very very blocky.)

The interesting thing was that this required thought and awareness, which is a bit difficult when you are younger. As I got older my confidence came, so became more relaxed in company and therefore less tense and so likely to stutter. I still do on occasion, but I am less concerned about it these days.

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#35

Post by mandeepj »

berius wrote: post #32

I've had a stutter for as long as I can remember and have noticed a correlation between how nervous I am about speaking and how much I would stutter. Eventually I just accepted that I will stutter at some point when talking and tried not to worry about it and my stuttering improved a lot. Like others have said here, I do believe anxiety and the fear of potentially stuttering will actually cause you to stutter more (a…

> One positive though is that I am very good at finding similar words to convey the same meaning when in mid-sentence if I feel a stutter is coming.

Like minds. Sometimes I switch words (if possible) like instead of saying "cranberry lemon tuna salad" (I struggle/stutter at 'cranberry'), I say "lemon cranberry tuna salad", and later correct myself :-). I know it might not be easy for the listener :-(

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#37

Post by remram »

I have a slight stutter if I don't pay attention and slow myself down. Feels like I'm trying to speak faster than I can articulate the words.

Interestingly that only happens in my natural language. I have been living in the US for 8 years and that hasn't been a problem when I speak English.

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#38

Post by pbhowmic »

My son (10) stutters. We thought we had gotten him help early enough so the problem would be "licked" just as so many others before him had done so but it helped some but the stuttering is still there. I don't know what else we could have done but this failure to help him cure his stuttering is one that left me feeling guilty and also angry (at no one in particular, just indiscriminate anger) and this spilled over into my marriage which is on its way to officially dissolving, sometime next year. Of course, it is a rich tapestry of reasons that has led my marriage's failure but the stuttering played its part.

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#39

Post by rikkus »

kuratkull wrote: post #19

I am in my early 30s and I have had a stutter since childhood. It was pretty serious when I was younger, currently pretty manageable - many/most people I know don't know(or remember) that I stutter. As I get older it's become more of an internal battle. I am pretty good at hiding it. If I am relaxed I can talk for long stretches without pauses. But occasionally I have to take a second or two before I can get a word o…

Oh the agony of not being able to say the next thing when everyone’s waiting for you to speak. Right in the middle of what was supposed to be a great point - in my mind, at least.

And yes it feels like the perception is going to be you’re thinking slowly or forgot what you were saying, but no, miles ahead in my brain here with a huge amount to say, busy processing it as I speak so I can get it across succinctly and appropriately for the audience - then ... blockage.

Re: Why some people suffer from a stutter

#40

Post by pbhowmic »

2wrist wrote: post #34

Have a stutter too, I was in speech therapy from when I was 7, and one of the techniques that worked best was to focus on breathing and relaxation. When I blocked on words, the levels of tension in my body was/is extremely high. Specifically in my diaphragm, when there is tension, my chest is more rigid and the tension in mouth and tongue is so much stronger. So they had me focusing on relaxing my diaphragm which wou…

My son has been in speech therapy since about 5 or 6. He is 10 now and still stutters.
Post reply on HN