Do you have a stutter or stammer? Are you looking into finding out about the latest treatments for stuttering and stammering? Do you often dream that one day you will be able to achieve fluency? If you have answered one or more of these questions in the positive then this article may well be of benefit to you.

I fully understand what it is like to have this form of speech impediment as I myself had a stutter which affected my speech for eighteen years – between the ages of four and twenty-two. Just like, no doubt, all people who have to cope with life in this way I was more than eager to find a cure. The problem however was the fact that the stuttering therapies and treatments that were available were some what poor.

Despite the negative attitudes of a number of the local speech and language therapists that I went to see (they tried to convince me that I would have to accept the stutter and that I would have it for my entire life) I personally believed that I could one day achieve my ultimate aim of total fluency. So where did this confidence come from? Well I was aware that when I was alone I would rarely, if at all, have any problem in speaking fluently. My philosophy was therefore that if I could speak fluently when I was on my own that I should in reality be able to speak fluently when with other people – I just had to work out what I was doing differently etc.

I am happy to report that I did, at the age of twenty-two, manage to achieve my goal of fluency.

My advice to people that have a stutter or stammer is:

1. Never give up
2. Do not listen to negative people and negative speech therapists when they try to tell you that you will always have this form of speech impediment
3. Think positive
4. Work extremely hard to overcome your stutter