Feared First Word

[Khaled Fadl]

Hello everybody,

My first post here in the forum, I am now on crutch number one which with the next two crutches deal with the Feared First words. Just to be sure that I am using a suitable crutch for each problem, Does the FFW mean the first word in the sentence? I mean the word when it’s my turn to speak or I want to say something.

Thanks
Khaled

[Anonymous]

Hi Khaled, that is correct. I discovered crutch 1 at the tender age of 8, my stutter was extremely mild at this point, I started stuttering properly at age 10. What I can say, is that crutch 1 definitely kept me from becoming a severe PWS. It is one of the easiest crutches to master, and nobody will even be aware that you are using it. Have you watched some of our coaching videos where we drill crutch 1? This is a really great place to start.

[Javier]

Hi Khaled,
I’m Javier, one of the Certified Coaches of WSSA. first of all, welcome!
About your question regarding FFW and Crutches:
– Frist Feared Words: meaning the first word of a sentence, or after a pause. Example: somebody asks you, “what’s your name?”, and you reply, “K-k-kKhaled.” In this case, “Khaled” is a first feared word. Crutches 1-8 would have avoided you from having this bad incident (appearing clearly speech disabled).

– Crutches for FFW: the most suitable Crutches to avoid having a bad incident on FFW are Crutches 1-8.
Crutches for middle words: middle words are the ones that are not FFW. The best Crutches to use to avoid appearing speech disabled when saying a middle word are Crutches 7-12 (13). They are also “speaking styles”, and they will also make you a better speaker, better than most, even if they never stutterered. So we recommend to use these as much as possible.

I hope this has cleared your doubts. And we look forward to hearing about your progress. Have a great day!

[Khaled Fadl]

Sorry, I forgot to check back on my question in the forum!
Thank you all, that’s really helpful!

[Khaled Fadl]

Thank you, Javier.
But what if the word I am struggling with is not the first word, in other words, it is in the middle of a sentence. Like if I am saying the following sentence:
“I have just had a [ LONG ] day”, and I have a problem with the word [LONG]. Can I still use the first crutch dropping the first letter “L” even if it’s not the first word?

[Khaled Fadl]

Yes Tasneem I agree with you I find it very useful and it was a brand-new aid for me as I didn’t use to use it before!

[Javier]

Hi Khaled,
for middle words the best Crutches are Crutches 7 to 12. But of course, you can say that you had a “ong” day and nobody will notice what you did there.

But, as I said, for those cases I prefer to, for example, link all my words and do it a bit more slowly than I usually do. If I don’t leave any spaces between words, there is no space for stuttering to jump in, so it is impossible to stutter, as long as we don’t allow ourselves to hesitate. So you would say someting like: “IHaveJustHadALongDay.” If you pay attention, that’s how everybody speaks actually. They don’t say “I. Have. Just. Had. A. Long. Day.” This sound very robotic, don’t you think. It’s much easier to understand if you watch one of my coaching sessions (or of any of the other coaches, of course). In the video section, you can use the filters to search for the videos that work on this Crutch (Crutch nº 10).

Hope this helps 🙂

[Khaled Fadl]

Helps so much! Thank you Javier!

[Anonymous]

Khaled, have you mastered “word-linkage”. If so, has this helped you with middle feared words?

[Author]

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