Throughout the past two years I have been asked to share my professional and personal experiences about stammering with several groups of students training to teach. This is
because I worked for many years as a nursery nurse in a variety of childcare settings with children who had an assortment of problems relating to speech and communication, and also I myself have a stammer.

I would like to heighten people's awareness about stammering and the effect it has on the person who stammers and provide beneficial material that can be used by adults who have responsibility for children.

Society in general continues to be quite ignorant, because little is known about stammering, and it is still seen as an embarrassment. Thankfully, with research and an increase of supportive organsations, this attitude is changing slowly.

For me stammering is like bicycling or driving a car on ice. I know where I want to go, but the conditions prevent me from reaching my destination. When a person stammers the brain loses reliable control over the complicated co-ordinated muscular movements that produce speech.

Joseph Sheehan, a famous speech therapist in America who stammered, said, "Stammering is like an iceberg." Only the top of the iceberg can be seen, the bulk is hidden beneath. When you stammer internal and external factors operate and are interlinked. Feelings of frustration, anger, sadness and shame can be hidden underneath.

The role of a sympathetic carer with empathy is to find out sensitively the internal and external factors provoking a child or adult to stammer. When somebody addresses an individual who stammers there can be a tendency to address the person as a stammerer, rather than as a
person in his own right. From my own experience it took me a while to detach myself from seeing myself as a stammerer and move on to seeing myself as a person in my own right.

The more that is known about stammering the less society will view it as an embarrassment. There is an old Indian saying that if we wish to know what it is like to be in the shoes of another person, then first we have to take off our own shoes and walk in the other person's shoes for a mile.

Thank you for walking briefly in the shoes of somebody who stammers. I would be interested to find out whether or not this information is of use, and to receive people's reactions.

Disorders of fluency in children (stammering)

Stammering may affect speech in these ways:

• Repetition of syllables, sounds, words or phrases
• Silent pauses called blocks
• Physical struggles to speak
• Unusual breathing sounds
• Avoidance of some words and situations

Delayed language

The first five years of a child's life are crucial for language development. Language involves thought processes, grammar, meaning, memory and words. Parents, relatives and friends play an important part in encouraging language development.

Delayed language in children can be due to developmental delay - not achieved at the expected time, or acquired delay - through injury or illness.

Either of these can result in the following:

• Difficulty in understanding speech
• Difficulty in thinking of words
• Difficulty putting words together into sentences
• Difficulty with grammar
• Difficulty in saying sounds and/or words
• Reading and writing difficulties

How to help

Do:

• Encourage your child to get his message across in whatever way he can, such as by pointing, using gestures, as well as by speech
• Encourage your child to talk about everyday things
• Ask for a hearing test if you are concerned about whether your child understands you
• Gain your child's attention when talking to him, and give him your attention
• Show interest in what your child says
• Contact a registered speech and language therapist if you are worried about your child's
  language development.

Do not:

• Correct the child's pronunciation. It is more important for a child to learn words and start forming sentences than to pronounce everything correctly.
• Show obvious concern about a child's communication. Children can sense anxiety.
  

Facts about stammering

• Approximately 1% of the population stammers. There are more than three times as many men as women who stammer.
• Stammering is non fluent speech involving a struggle, which has some easy pauses and hesitations.
• Stammering can involve repeating or prolonging sounds or words, or getting stuck (blocking). Its severity varies from person to person.
• The causes of stammering are not understood although there is much ongoing research.
• It can be hereditary. Stammering can be found in every language spoken, and among members of every race irrespective of social class, education or personality.
• People who stammer are as intelligent as the rest of the population.
• There is no cure available for adults who stammer, but help is available from speech and language therapists.
• Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe and George VI stammered.

Some useful addresses
Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, 7 Bath Place, Rivington Street, London EC2A 3DR

Association for Research into Stammering in Childhood, Michael Palin Centre, Pine Street, London EC1R 0JH

The British Stammering Association, 15 Old Ford Road, London E2 9PJ

Helpful websites

The British Stammering Association http://www.stammering.org/links/html

National Stuttering Association USA http://www.nsastutter.org/

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