Stutter when speaking from afar and when starting conversations

[Juned Ahmed]

Hi,

I would like some advice on what I can do to fix this issue. I realised that I don’t stutter much when I am being asked something, or in other terms when someone starts a conversation with me, but I stutter a lot when I have to approach someone, and/or speak to them from far way. I have to literally come close to them for my speech to come out, and even then its not as fluent as when I am being approached to talk.

[Javier]

Hi Juned!
Great question!
When we’re approached, we have to reply back. That means speaking spontaneously, so we don’t have time to plan what we’re going to say (hence, planning our stutters).
When we are the ones starting a conversation, we have time to plan our sentences (or even the entire conversation!) and which words will cause us trouble.
When we’re far away from the person we’re speaking to, we may feel exposed. We feel that we will be seen and heard by everybody in the room (that’s not the case, but anyway…). A big issue that PWS have is that they believe that whenever they speak, everybody is judging the way they speak. And that puts extra pressure on the PWS-speaker. Reality is that nobody cares about the way we speak, even if we are a severe stutterer. 5 minutes later they will have forgotten about your speech, your blocks, etc.

So, my advice is to try by all means to not think your next word. Instead, focus your attention on anything else. Some ideas that may help you: make sure you keep a smile, even before speaking. This has helped me a lot, especially when approaching strangers, for example. Make sure you speak slowly from the very beginning, pronouncing every syllable clearly (see that I’m not speaking about words, I’m speaking about the way we say those words; out focus of attention has to be on the way we speak, never on the words). These things are also very helpful.

I hope you find these things helpful!

[Juned Ahmed]

Thanks Javier,

I have been practicing the crutches and doing a combination of them (whispering the first syllable and then saying the word e.g. I would say the word anomaly by first whispering the first syllable “an” and then saying the word “anomaly”). Its always when I have to start a conversation with something where I just struggle to get first syllable even after using a crutch like a I had mentioned above e.g. calling out the person’s name to get their attention. Could you let me know how I am suppose to use this combining of crutch 1 and crutch 7. Lee had mentioned this combination in multiple coaching videos that I’ve watched.

[Author]

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