My name is Bernd, I am 36 years old, and I come from Germany. I started to stutter around the age of 4 to 30 % of the words and I am a situational stutterer which means, I stutter more when the pressure is more and vice versa. Mainly, my stutter depends on the situation, general mind set and sleep schedule. The pattern of my stutter is usually blocks and repeats. This led to avoidance behaviour especially when the stress/ pressure is high which in turn caused a lot of anxiety and problems with self-rejection and self-image. I have been stuttering since kindergarten/primary school age and have tried a few therapies over the years to make my speech more fluent. Initially I had classical speech therapy, then intensive therapy based on the Fluency Shaping approach, then various other less intensive therapies etc., these therapies helped me but did not solve the stuttering problem. Therefore, I kept searching for other speech programs out there.
I can’t remember exactly when and where I found Coach Lee Lovett, I think I first saw him on YouTube. I was really interested because the program that WSSA offered was related to neuroplasticity and I then bought his book shortly afterwards. At the time I think it was the second edition, but today I also own the third or fourth (the latest version) of the book, which I had read aloud several times. I am now also a lifelong member of the WSSA community and have had two coaching sessions with Coach Prathusha so far and we have been drilling on the crutches, however the crutches that really worked was C9 – extreme pronunciation, speech plans – short, link, stops and most importantly the enthusiasm and passion really worked for me. Whenever I used enthusiasm and passion, I felt completely fluent and confident about my speech. I also send my speech updates to coach Prathusha via what’s up audio recording and this helped me to practice my speech as I was not typing the message but speaking the message.
I have not had a bad incident in over a month, but I have not completed the program yet (learning to love to speak everywhere and converting my stuttering into a blessing). So, I’m still a work in progress and majority of my learning is self-taught and of course. WSSA is helping me to discover and support my fluency, but I still feel like I have a long way to go, where I feel confident and speak fluently in every situations. There are 3 things WSSA program accentuates 1) The fluent speech passages are dramatically increased by reading aloud every day, (2) the proportion of stuttered speech is reduced as much as possible by the usage of crutches and speech plans, (3) the whole thing is supported and accelerated with mind-training where one fills the mind with positive thoughts which in turns makes the person lose the stuttering identity. In addition, you will become a very good, confident, and competent speaker, regardless of your stuttering. In this aspect, it is a very logical, multi-pronged approach which strongly orients towards neuroplasticity and is therefore promising. It is not difficult to speak fluently. It is a challenge to remain fluent and, above all, to enjoy speaking. The Neuroscience method teaches you all this and much more. I will continue to update my journey on my speech progress regularly. I thank Coach Prathusha, Lee Lovett and World Stop Stuttering Association who prove that stuttering is no longer a life sentence.
Bernd, Germany, January 2024
