Stutter with a letter within the word

[Juned Ahmed]

Hi,

Can I be advised on the ways to tackle stuttering on a sound in the middle of the word. An example would be with the word ‘Read’ where I get stuck on the ‘R’ but I feel that I it is not the letter ‘R’ that is the problem, it is actually the letter ‘E’ after it (a vowel as this is where I stutter most).

[Javier]

Hi Juned!
Vowels, consonants… that’s not the problem. Hasn’t it ocurred to you that after you finally say a word, you can say it a million times immediately afterwards? Or you can say that same word if you’re alone?
The problem is fearing words, planning words, and the insecurity we feel when saying that word to someone. What will they think about my speech? Will they laugh at me for stuttering? And so on.

The truth is, nobody cares about your speech and/or has time to care about it. People have things to do, like study, work, pay bills, take care of themselves and their families, they have their own problems. Do you think your speech is in their top priorities? Not even close. Even if you have the worst block in ages when saying a word, that person will have forgotten about it in 2 minutes.

I’m saying this to help you realise that you need to stop being sooooo worried about your speech and other people’s opinions. They don’t matter. Your opinion about yourself is what matters. You need to work on having a good opinion about yourself, and the way to do it is to give your best at everything you do (no matter how mundane it may be) and be as loving as you can be. This includes giving your best at improving your speech and achieving the PWSS status, obviously.

One thing you need to learn is to use Crutches properly. By this I mean that when you use a Crutch, you put all your attention and determination on the Crutch, and not on the word. Again, words are irrelevant. How we say them is what matters. For example, if we’re speaking in a soft voice, we put all our attention (100%; 90% is not ALL our attention) on keeping the voice in that register. Period. Another example: if we are using Crutch 4 and then linking the rest of the words, we make sure we start with a sound-launch and then we link it to the next words. So you have to make sure you link everything, as if those words and the sound launch were one single individual long word. You must leave no “spaces”, no matter how short they may be. This requires a lot of attention, especially at the beginning, so you may need to practice it several times, especially in low pressure situations and gradually climb up the ladder to higher ones, expanding comfort zones.

Watch some of our recordings of coaching sessions (https://worldstopstuttering.org/videos/) and use the search filters on the left to find the most suitable ones for your case. You may want to use the video tag “crutches overview” or “emergency speech plan”, for example.

You may also consider purchasing coaching sessions with one of us, Certified Speech Coaches, to help you in this journey to fluency and loving to speak in all venues.

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