Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change, adapt and form new connections. Neuro refers to neurons, the nerve cells that are the building blocks of the brain and nervous system. Plasticity refers to the brain’s malleability and quality of being easily influenced or trained.
This rewiring of your brain occurs every day when we learn things like a new language or video game, studying for a test or traveling. Your brain transforms and adjusts as a result of these experiences.
At WSSA, we do not advocate accepting stuttering. We advocate stopping it, learning to love to speak and applying mind-training to improve speech and all aspects of our lives. To help People Who Stutter (PWS) become People Who Stopped Stuttering (PWSS), we use The Lovett Method – a disruptive methodology based on using neuroplasticity to replace the habit of stuttering with the habit of fluency. You learn to love speaking.
To unlearn an engrained stuttering-habit, our coaches show the Person Who Stutters (PWS) ways to hear fluency that ultimately help break the stutter-habit. We use a three- pronged approach; (1) teach our students to read aloud with maximum feeling, focusing on the message, (2), share basic mind-training methods (auto suggestion and layman- levels of self-hypnosis), and (3) to avoid hearing constant dysfluency, we help them learn methods/strategies/tools, which we call “crutches” (like the temporary crutches one uses to avoid walking on a broken leg while it heals).
WSSA has performed more documented research on stuttering than any individual or group in history – to date, over 6,000 individual sessions; 1,500 videos; thousands of emails with PWS; publication of several books detailing our proven methods; and founding of the World Stop Stuttering Association (WSSA), the world’s only community of former stutterers.
We help you overcome your fear and learn to love speaking.
WSSA offers the only proven method of curing stuttering. We demonstrate how stuttering and related speech anxieties can be stopped by using The Lovett Method – the basis of WSSA’s self-guided program to eliminate these challenges through mind training.
Our speech-coaches are former stutterers themselves who work with students at all levels of severity; from those that have relatively mild speech anxieties to those that can barely speak one word. Our goals are the same for everyone:
Our coaches help their students unlearn bad speech habits and learn new and effective ones through proven mind training methods. From overcoming stuttering-tendencies to mastering public speaking techniques, we teach people to how to navigate their anxieties and learn to love to speak!
Helping people stop stuttering is the top of our list, and we do this by looking beyond speech techniques to address “the whole person.”
Underlying issues that can foment stuttering (inferiority complexes, excessive concerns with the opinions of others, an obsession to be perfect, anxiety and stress) are addressed by our coaches during one-on-one sessions. Using a program of training the brain (neuroplasticity) through positive thinking, we can help control a host of common human issues that can impede self-worth and, as a result, speech fluency.
This holistic approach means focusing on attitudes and beliefs that foster fluid speech and help mitigate negative thoughts. And to the extent that students embrace it, we have found that the more positive our students are about themselves, the more manageable their speech issues become. The habit of fearing speaking situations is changed: their life is now elevated and they love to speak.
In summary, our program consists of the following holistic steps: