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There are those of us from within the stuttering therapy industry – people who are trying their best to make a positive difference to the lives of many people who have this form of speech impediment – who are often left quite bemused. I have just read a stuttering blog whose author seems to be solely interested in finding out what causes a person to develop a stutter. He seems to have put a huge amount of time and effort into this but there is just one problem, it does not seemed to have helped him one bit as he still has a pronounced stutter. Surely looking for ways to overcome the stutter would be more beneficial.

What disturbed me about reading his blog was not so much about his blinkered crusade to find out the causes of stuttering but more the way he attempts to encourage people to accept their stutter. He is very much in favour of the more traditional forms of speech therapy – which let’s face it we all know do not work. The BSA are very quick to state that in their opinion there is not a cure for stammering or stuttering – yeh right! This brainless blogger – which is a rather apt name to call him – is less than positive about the more specialist treatments for stuttering. Just because he has been unable to overcome a stutter does not mean that other people will not be able to~So he has failed in quest to achieve total fluency; perhaps he has not even tried – this however should not mean that he deters other people from trying to reach their goal of a stuttering free life}. It goes without saying that we are all different; there of those people, such as myself, who think in a positive manner!

I personally believe that it is important to discover the causes of stuttering but feel that stuttering treatment is far more essential. If this blogger put in as much effort into overcoming his stutter as he does to learning about the causes of stammering and stuttering then surely he would have a great chance to achieve fluency. In truth he would have to change his attitude some what as I would doubt that he would attend any form of stuttering therapy with an open mind. He would go there believing it would not work, he therefore is unlikely to have the motivation to put in the required hours of practice to enable any of the stuttering cure techniques, that he had been taught, to become a natural part of his speech.

Apart from finding the blog disturbing, I actually felt sorry for this blogger. Why? He has a stutter; he has seemingly accepted that he will have the speech impediment for the rest of his life – he has given up – I for one think that this is rather sad especially as he actually seems like an educated man, despite my brainless comment earlier.