About the authors:

Heather Grossman, PhD, CCC-SLP is the Director at the American Institute for Stuttering in New York, NY. She has worked with children and adults who stutter for over 25 years and was among the first select group of speech-language pathologists to receive board recognition as a specialist in the treatment of fluency disorders from ASHA. Heather is an extremely active presenter at stuttering self-help conferences, and presents regularly at both national and international professional conferences. She is regularly called upon as an expert reference for journalistic coverage of stuttering and has appeared on numerous radio and television broadcasts, including the CBS Morning Show and Katie. Dr. Grossman has extensive experience as a teacher, researcher, and clinician. Before joining AIS, she was the clinical services coordinator at Hofstra University and an adjunct professor at Long Island University, Mercy College, and Queens College. In addition to fluency disorders, her teaching and clinical experience has focused on childhood language and learning disorders, autism spectrum disorders, and language development. Heather received her doctorate degree in 2008 at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where she investigated voluntary stuttering.

Carl Herder, MA, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist at the American Institute for Stuttering in New York, NY. He has presented numerous times at national and international conferences (IFA, ASHA, NSA) and has published peer-reviewed articles in the Journal of Fluency Disorders, the Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, Contemporary Issues in Communication Sciences and Disorders, and PLOS ONE. He has taught courses in both phonetic science and fluency disorders at the University of Maryland and George Washington University. Carl attended graduate school at the University of Central Florida. At UCF he developed a strong interest in fluency disorders while performing research under the direction of Dr. Chad Nye and Dr. Martine Vanryckeghem.

People who stutter (PWS) typically expend a great deal of energy concealing their stuttering and avoid talking about their stuttering with others. This tendency to hide from stuttering creates a negative cycle of communication-related fears feeding more self-defeating avoidance behaviors and tense physical secondary behaviors.

Since we know that trying to avoid and conceal stuttering only fuels the problem, we attempt to reverse this process by encouraging PWS to be more open about their stuttering. This involves letting true, raw stuttering out, playing with different ways of stuttering voluntarily, educating strangers, friends, and family about stuttering, and self-disclosing stuttering in many different situations. We encourage our clients to communicate openly with their friends and family about their feelings and thoughts related to stuttering, and how they can be supportive. Clients are also encouraged to discuss aspects of their speech therapy, such as voluntary stuttering, desensitization, and self-advertising.

Many of our clients report that no one ever spoke about stuttering while they were growing up. Further, many claim that they are sure their friends know that they stutter even though they likewise have never discussed stuttering with them. Some people who travel to attend our intensive therapy programs tell us that they lied to friends and family about the reason for coming to New York. In our experience, those who are reluctant to speak about stuttering with others say they worry that it will be too uncomfortable to talk about it, that they fear what the other person might say, or worry that the other person will be dismissive or disinterested.

By completing activities such as the ones listed below, PWS experience that most people are in fact interested and supportive and that no one is nearly as bothered by stuttering as is the individual doing the stuttering! Our goal as clinicians is to help PWS modify the relationship they have with their stuttering. Many of the activities are designed to be fun and even competitive. As they complete the activities, PWS begin to shift their view of stuttering as awful and shameful to seeing it as a speech characteristic that while challenging, is nonetheless something they can accept and explore.

These are some of the specific activities we use at the American Institute for Stuttering. We engage in these activities in individual therapy, group therapy, and intensive programs. Many of these activities can be adapted for use with children.

Friends and Family Survey

“As part of my speech therapy I am working on talking more openly about my stuttering.  Would you please answer these questions?”

1. What do you think causes stuttering?
2. What kinds of things do you think helps stuttering?
3. What questions have you had about my stuttering or about stuttering in general?
4. (We have clients write their own question here)

As part of the survey, the PWS has the chance to educate others, reinforcing what he or she is doing in therapy. We find that this activity sparks great conversations among family members and several of our clients have learned that they have other relatives who stutter that they didn’t know about!

Surveys with Strangers

“Hi, I’m ______________. I’m a person who stutters working on my speech. Would  you mind taking a moment to answer a few questions about stuttering?”

1. What do you think causes stuttering?
2. What do you think a person who stutters could do to improve?
3. Have you ever known anyone personally who stutters?
4. (We have clients write their own question here)

Survey Experiment

“Do you know anyone personally who is a person who stutters?”

We have each member of a group predict what percentage of the general population personally will say they know a person who stutters. We then take a group of people out to collect as much data as they can and then see whose prediction comes closest.

Friends and Family Day

At the conclusion of our group intensive programs and sporadically throughout the year, we have group sessions where PWS are asked to invite friends and family members to our Clinic. The clients make speeches where they share about their personal journeys. We provide a “Stuttering 101” with basic information about stuttering and how loved ones can be supportive. We invite the visitors to write questions anonymously and we answer them as a group, sparking helpful discussions.

Throughout the intensive program, we work as a group creating posters that we then display on the walls. Examples include: visual depiction of stuttering iceberg, personal views on defining stuttering, ways to explain what stuttering is to others, personal goals for therapy, and aspects of effective communication. These written artifacts provide a great way for us to educate the clients’ friends and families about the specifics of their therapy, and gain more insight into the challenges of stuttering.

Here are some examples from recent groups (click on image to enlarge):

Education in the Park

“Hello, we are handing out some free information about stuttering.”

We create a postcard with a small list of interesting facts about stuttering and some Do’s and Don’ts for Listeners. We take groups out to parks to distribute the postcards.

Classroom Presentations for Children

“I’m going to say some statements about stuttering. For each one, raise your hand if you think it’s true.”

This provides a great way for CWS to self-disclose and become more comfortable about stuttering in school. We first work on creating the fact list in a session with the child. During the presentation, we hand out finger traps to educate the class about stuttering, show a short film, and the child leads the True/False activity.

Advertising phone calls and advertising in stores

“Hello, I have a question. I stutter so I may need a little extra time to speak.”

These activities have a strong desensitization effect; we find it helpful to have clients do a fairly large number of these in a row to experience the diminishment of anxious physical reactions.

Stuttering Scavenger Hunt

As a fun and challenging activity, we have small groups of clients compete to get as many points as possible in an hour by completing challenges such as educating street vendors, waiters, and salespeople about stuttering, advertising and asking random people questions, and using voluntary stuttering to ask for things they are trying to collect. We have the clients add challenges to the lists that they think will help them in their goal of becoming more fearless about stuttering and talking about stuttering openly.