This is fantastic, guys!!

Hi Federica! I’m Javier, and just like Leah, I’m a PWSS and one of the Certified Coaches of WSSA. I’m from Madrid, Spain, so we could even speak in Spanish if you wish 🙂

It’s great to see that you’re going to take this program seriously and start your process of becoming a PWSS.

Reading aloud, especially at the beginning, can be tedious. I admit that. When I first started this program, I must say that I didn’t like reading aloud. But I knew I had to do it. I forced myself to do it, because stopping stuttering became my nº1 priority. So I made a huge effort to read aloud every day at least 1h. Even if my throat began to ache, I kept on doing it, but whispering. Since at work you deal with a lot of reading materials, read those! Everyday, when I went to my office, I liked to read the news while I prepared myself a coffee. Well, I used to read those articles aloud (or in a whisper if I didn’t want to bother those around me). I also read aloud all my whatsapp messages, emails, etc.
I forced myself to read aloud as much as I could. I even wrote it in my agenda, as one of my tasks to do every day. The beginning is the toughest part, but the more you do it, the easier it gets, because you’ll get used to it. In the end you’ll even get to enjoy it, I’m not joking!

Force yourself too to do the mind training treatments (auto-suggestions and/or self-hypnosis) at least x2/day, once in the morning and another one before going to bed. To find the time, I woke up (and I still wake up) 20 minutes earlier, to be able to give myself one of these treatments. And I don’t regret it! It helps me so much, not only with my speech, as now my affirmations deal with other things about myself.

About the Crutches and how to use them during the day…. well, you have to try to use them as much as possible. You should know that using them is going to actually improve your speech, so why not use them 24/7?
I used to give myself challenges, such as: now, I am going to use Crutch 1 for the next 10 minutes, on random words while I speak. For the folloeing 10 minutes, the same but with Crutch 2. And so on, until you finish with the list of the Crutches.
When reading aloud, use them too. It is a great opportunity to master them. Read aloud and use one Crutch per page, on as many words as you can. This is a great “training exercise”. BTW, when reading aloud, the only 2 Crutches that you won’t be able to use are Crutches 5 and 6 (it’s not easy to use them when reading aloud).
Every time you open your mouth to say something is a great chance to use the Crutches.
The Crutches work because when you use them, and focus 100% on the Crutches, you won’t be focusing on the word, so you won’t have issues saying that word. We stutter when we think-fear-hesitate-force the word. The Crutches prevent this from happening. So the more we use them, the sooner that speaking thinking only on the Crutches will become a habit, the sooner it will become your usual way of speaking. If you get there, you’ll be able to use the Crutches automatically, without thinking. This is when you won’t ever again worry or even think about your stutter.

About the coaching, we recommend to first finish reading the book, so that we don’t need to explain the book (so you save time, and you will be able to make a better use of the coaching sessions). But of course, you can ask us to explain to you anything about the book.

Regarding the meetings on Saturdays, of course that you can come to those. They are aimed for PWS and PWSS, of course!! We hope to see you this Saturday!

About practicing the Crutches, we have created a series of group meetings to precisely practice the Crutches:

Crutch Practice Group

The idea is to meet in groups of not more than 5 people, so that all the attendees have time to work on the Crutches. I am the host of some of these meetings (Wednesdays and Fridays at 5am EDT, or 10am if you are still in the Canary Islands). So my session will start in less than 1h. It’d be great to see you there!!!

I hope I answered all your questions, if not please let me know. If you have other questions, please share them with us! Have a great day.

Hi Tracey, it is not easy to explain it verbally, it is much easier explained face to face, but I’ll give it a try anyway.
The idea behind this Crutch is that if not all PWS, then 99% of them are fluent when they sing, right? The reason is because when we sing, we are focusing on our tone, on our voice. We are not thinking about the words, we are not fearing them. So we’re fluent.
Try to sing a word or a few words. Notice that your abdomen is naturally hard when you do it? That’s what happens when we sing. Now do it again, but try remove the melody. You’ll be holding a tone while you speak. If your stomach is still hard, you’re doing it right. The idea is that if you do this and link your syllables and words (making sure you don’t interrupt the air coming out of your mouth), you’ll be fluent. But you can’t do this with many words, or you’ll run out of air and get more nervous, and the risk of getting stuck will increase. So you have to do it in short increments, or, for example, not more than 5 words or so (don’t count the words, just have that in mind).

To get a much clearer idea of what I am saying, you can watch really good videos of the coaches explaining this in our sessions. To watch this you must go to the “Videos” section of this website. Once there, on the left you’ll find a lot of filters to find the mos apropriate videos for you. There are “vide tags”, and I suggest you to use this one: “holding the tone”. If you watch any of those videos, I’m very sure that you’ll get a much clearer idea of what I’m saying.

I hope I explained myself clearly. If not, please do let me know.

Hi John!
welcome back to WSSA! As you said, this program requires daily and constant work to beat stuttering.

About the Crutch Practice Group sessions. some of the hosts of these meetings are PWSS (not coaches), and they do this as a pure hobby, maybe they had an important event at that time and couldn’t host the session, I don’t know… In any case, I appologise on their behalf.

For the next time, I’d suggest you to email the host telling them your intention of attending to that Crutch Practice Group session. Send me an email to [email protected] and let me know to which ones you’d like to attend so that I can give you the email address of that host, so that you can email them directly.

And finally, please do keep us posted with your progress here!

Hello Sun. I know what you mean. All PWS are perfectionists. But I know fluent people that when they hear their own voice they also cringe. So, don’t be so hard with yourself… Forgive any minor incidents that are not clear bad incidents (everybody has those), and if you don’t see any clear bad incidents or signs of speech disability, see it as a win, as a success, as a victory.
Some time ago I read from the Forum here that Leah used to record her voice using the Crutches, to see what she sounded like. She was surprised of how bad her speech was when she didn’t use them (as a PWS) and how well she spoke when she used them!!
So, Sun, from our Crutch Practice sessions I can say that your speech is great. Don’t be such a perfectionists and accept this fact!!

Exactly, Adam! Even as a PWSS, I can’t recommend this enough!! Especially with Crutch 10 in my case. We never get enough of hearing our voices at our best (when reading aloud)

Hi Adam. I’ve never been hypnotised by a Certified hypnotist, but I’ve been doing slef-hypnosis for more than one year, on a daily basis. It has helped me tremendously.
But of course, you need to work on it daily.
The first day I gave myself a self-hypnosis treatment, I didn’t stop stuttering, of course. I kept on doing self-hypnosis at least twice a day for weeks. It wasn’t until the third week of doing this consistently that I began to feel the benefits of self-hypnosis. And this doesn’t mean that self-hypnosis made me stop stuttering. No. I’m saying that self-hypnosis CONSIDERABLY HELPED ME become a PWSS, but I wouldn’t have made it without using the Crutches as much as possible and reading aloud for at least 1h/day too.