The emergency speech plans are proving to be really helpful. When we are under pressure, we need to keep things really simple, otherwise, in some cases, it can be overwhelming, and we might not know how to proceed. Keeping things simple is usually a great approach in most situations.

Like Gábor said, inserting full stops every few words is always helpful, it keeps us relaxed and it improves our speech, no matter if we are a PWS or a PWSS.

Well said, Adam! We do this for ourselves! BTW, congratulations for losing all that weight! It’s a huge accomplishment! You should be very proud!

Hi John! Thanks for the compliments!

And Tara, welcome to WSSA! This is the right place if you want to stop stuttering. My name is Javier, I used to be a severe and very heavy blocker. But I stopped stuttering a bit more than 2 years ago, and I’m also one of the coaches here.

The advice that John gave you is very good!

I don’t know if you are a Free Trial member or if you are a Stuttering member. I am asking you this because if you haven’t watched the video lessons and some of the +1000 videos of coaching sessions, you should! The video lessons are extremely helpful and they’ll help you understand Lee’s books a lot better:one thing is to read how to do something, and a completely different one is to see someone show you how to do it. The same applies to the videos of coaching sessions. You have a lot of filters available to find the most suitable videos for you, and most likely the advice that I or the rest of the coaches give to one of our students will also be helpful for you.
But of course, the best thing is to get private coaching, as the advice we will be giving you will be tailored for your case.

About falling from stutterer’s cliff, most likely (without knowing you), the best Crutch is Crutch 11. Make sure you speak slightly slower (as if you were explaining something difficult to understand to somebody), and inserting pauses every few words. Make these pauses a bit longer than you’d normally do. Insert them every 5 words or so, maximum. Where you insert the full stop doesn’t matter, trust me. Use hand gestures, make sure you pronounce clearly all your syllables, gesticulate, be expressive.
But the most important thing: FULL STOPS. Make sure you really insert them. CLOSE YOUR MOUTH COMPLETELY when doing it. Focus on all these things, forget about the words.
You might view the full stops as something frightening, as you might think that if you insert a pause, you’ll get stuck on the next word. The reality is that the longer your sentences, the more nervous you’ll get, and the harder it will be for you to speak fluently. I’m asking you to do the exact opposite. It is logical to expect opposite results, right?
And even if you’re going to have trouble with the next word, you have Crutches 1-8 to beat it easily. One of my favourites is Crutch 4, for example.

I hope you find this helpful. If not , please do let me know.

Send me an email if you prefer: [email protected]

Great advice, Shubham!

Hi Maria,
If you like to read poetry, I’d suggest you to ask Lee. I’m not a big fan of poetry. If you prefer to novels, my favourite is, without doubt: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. And it’s a perfect book to read passionately. The dialogues, the descriptions….

Adam, if you were an alcoholic, and you haven’t had a single drop of alcohol for, let’s say, 5 years…. should you address that you are an alcoholic? Even if you haven’t drank a single drop of alcohol in such a long time, and you no longer think about alcohol?

Once you haven’t stuttered in a long time, and you no longer fear words…. you simply forget about stuttering. It is no longer is among your dominant thoughts. It has become part of your past, but not your present, nor your future. Why worry about it then?

Very well said Amine. My speech is not always perfect. Nobody’s speech is perfect anyway. But I’m speaking fluently, like the rest of the people. Yes, maybe, when under pressure, my speech might sound a bit more hesitant, but that happens to most people too. And that’s not bad. As long as we don’t appear speech disabled (despite those “bumps”), we’ll be fine.
There is always room for improvement, of course, but we “passed” the test. We didn’t appear speech disabled. Let’s celebrate it! Smile! You did it! Most likely, some months ago you might have had a bad incident in that same situation. BUT NOW YOU DON’T!!

And if unfortunately you have a bad incident, don’t be too hard with yourself. We’re humans, we make mistakes. Let’s try to learn from it, let’s be constructive, and then carry on with our lives. We’ve learnt the lesson. Now, we’ll make sure it won’t happen again. This bad incident, if you learn from it, it will make you stronger. But if you dwell on it, it won’t. It will make you go backwards, it will make your stuttering stronger. This is unnecessary. We don’t want that.

So let’s do as Amine suggested, and forget about ourselves, about our fears, and let’s try to give our best effort to use the Crutches and see every speaking situation as an opportunity to improve our speech, to learn something new and to get to love to speak. If you focus on these things, you don’t need to worry about what others might think of you, because they will surely get a good impression about you.