salm28
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stammerer and Listener's Role - 2007/10/18 23:02
This article is about how a person with stammer can get help from himself and from the people around him. This shows how a positive attitude by both can have significant effects on communication problems.
A person who stammers is constantly being driven by fear of stammering. He/she is forced by this fear to hide is stammer, substitute the words, avoid certain words, try to be as fluent as he can, use different tricks(A trick is something a stammerer think will help e.g. deep breathing, tapping, a jerk, closing eyes etc) and the fear that his speech being judged by the listner.These things stays with him most of the time and sometimes he might not accept that I am doing these things , but the fact is that most of the things he does are unintentional and he is being ruled by that fear of stammering. He can’t even thing of facing the fear as he has been under its influence for most of his life.
To solve the problem there are certain things that should be kept in mind all the time. A stammerer should think stammering as something he is doing, not something which is happening to him.
Trying to be more fluent puts lot of pressure on a stammerer as he does everything to avoid a block or word .This can be stopped by stammering more easily and openly. Stammering easily and openly is a learning process and this needs some hard work in self help group where a stammerer can discover certain things which he/she might have not experienced before. It should be kept in mind all the time by the stammerer that his/her speech is not being judged by listener, he/she should try to take the listener into confidence by telling or showing him or her the stammer resulting in reducing the fear.
The Eye contact is one of the important aspects of communication. Keeping the eye contact at the time of stammer will give a new feeling to the stammerer.As most of the stammerer tend not to keep the contact at the time of stammer , they never discover the actual effects of being seen by someone at the time of stammer. When the eye contact is kept at the time of the stammer, the stammerer now sees that the other person has seen me stammering so the fear of stammering automatically goes off as there is nothing to hide now.
Pausing allows you to concentrate of each and every word rather then rushing straight away to the word and trapping yourself into viscous circle of stammering. Pausing stops the stammerer from talking in same habitual way and helps in doing an easy and open stammer. All of these things needs a constant reminder and should be brought into practice in everyday speech.
The listener’s can help the stammerer by not finishing there words, make them feel that there speech is not being judged at all, wait if it’s a block, keep the eye contact and encourage the stammerer to keep the eye contact, make them feel that’s its ok to stammer, not put to much time pressure on him by speaking to fast. Parents with stammering child should never apologize to someone for there child stammer as it could have devastating effects on the child.
The awareness in society about stammering is needed as it will have great effects on the life of a stammerer.
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