Many people have problems with their communication and in this article I am going to describe ways in which to overcome these speech difficulties.

My name is Stephen Hill and I am from Birmingham in England. From the age of four I had the speech impediment known as a stutter. I attended many different types of speech therapy, some in groups, some on a one to one basis. The kind of advice I was given to control the stutter or to overcome the stutter were varied. These are some:

slowing down my breath

costal breathing

prolonged speech

taking a deep breath before I spoke

Preschool stuttering

I had began in the class called, stuttering in preschool. At this age my parents were advised that it was probably just a phase and that I was likely to grow out of it (the stutter). They were relieved about this but for whatever reason it did not go away and was to ruin my life for the next eighteen years.

Childhood stuttering

I then joined the class called, stuttering in childhood. I continued to attend speech therapy and was trying to take on board what they were telling me. In reality I did not want to be there and for some reason I felt ashamed and would often wonder why I had a stutter when no one else seemed to.

Adult stuttering

I then progressed to the class called, stuttering in adults. I now decided that speech therapy was not really working for me. I possibly had always had the wrong attitude to speech therapy. It was hard to convince me that these people could help as I knew they had never even had a stutter, therefore I thought that it was impossible for them to fully understand what I was going through.

I then decided to try my own form of self help for stuttering. Even though I had a stutter, at times I could talk very well. As an example when I was drunk, I spoke nearly perfectly fluent. My all round confidence would increase and suddenly I did not care or worry so much about my speech or anything in fact.

After nearly a year I managed to stop stuttering once and for all. As a career I now help other people how to achieve fluency.

Steve Hill

Stephen Hill runs The How To Stop Stammering Centre In England. He offers stuttering therapy courses to help people who stutter to achieve fluency. Stuttering is also known in some countries as stammering.