I am the mother of Nat, who began stuttering heavily just before he turned 4. I hold a Ph.D. and am a family therapist and am Executive Director of a Family Center at a University in California. My son, Nat, was 4.5 years old (the oldest of three children), when we began using Lee Lovett’s neuroscience methods to stop stuttering.
Our son began stuttering just before turning 4 years-old in almost all his conversations. Nat’s father and I became quite concerned about this and began therapy with Speech Language Pathologist. The suggested therapy consisted primarily of lessons on breathing and other methods that focused our son and us on the problem, stuttering, rather than on ways to avoid it. Specifically, he was being taught to recognize “bumpy” speech. I became concerned that the therapy could make the problem worse.
I did some research online and found World Stop Stuttering Association, which I learned is the world’s only community of ex-stutterers. WSSA was founded by an ex-stutterer, Lee Lovett, who has written several books disclosing ways to stop stuttering. I read one of his books and was very impressed and I then joined WSSA. I then discontinued therapy sessions with the SLP and relied on WSSA’s methods. I absolutely loved Lee’s book and the methods that he and WSSA suggested. Coach Lee, as his students call him, then met online with me and my husband.
We learned valuable lessons about our own speech and its effects on Nat and about ways to help our son by reading aloud to and with him (who did not yet read). Talking about the speech problems with one as young as Nat, as we learned, can compound the problem. Coach Lee even suggested various hand-signals that we could use subtly to help our son slow and improve his speech. As a result of my husband and me speaking more slowly and deliberately—of which at times we did at something of an extreme, talking very, very slowly for an hour or two—our son’s stuttering improved dramatically.
At Coach Lee’s suggestion, we also made videos of some our reading aloud sessions with Nat and emailed them to Lee, and he made more suggestions to improve our reading methods. We continued to send Coach Lee very short videos of our reading aloud sessions, and he made suggestions.
Today, our son only on rare occasions might appear to have a speech issue to some, but it is so, so, so much better than it was! We will continue reading aloud with him daily and intentionally speaking very slowly at times.
It has now been several months since Nat’s speech stopped appearing disabled. While Nat’s speech can and surely will continue to improve, as will his father’s and mine, we are delighted to heartily recommend Lee Lovett’s stuttering books and World Stop Stuttering Association, a wonderful charity which has amassed several hundred “Stopped Stuttering Stories”, like this one, helping stutterers from all ages around the world and does so at such low costs.
As best we know, WSSA is the world’s only community of ex-stutterers, a fact that proves the efficacy of their methods.
Nat’s Mom, September, 2024
