Being a person who stutters is no longer inevitable

Health 23 October, 2017


/AP/SIPA

Published the 23.10.2017 at 15h32



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bégaiementjournée world

In France there are 700 000 people who stutter. Is it that we know where it comes from, the stuttering ?

YLD : Probably as many episodes of stress, accidents, emotional often trivial to explain the genesis of this disorder of language. It was described as the Oedipus complex, castration anxiety, the ambivalence between desire to grow and commitment, without understanding, for certain, the causes.

I have the impression that it affects more boys than girls. It is true it ?

YLD : Yes, three times more boys than girls, left-handed people than right-handed children than adults, and there are families of people who stutter. But rulemaking is the first trap, because no utility for the treatment. We are not born a person who stutters, it built its stuttering from the efforts that are made to avoid it, by fighting it or by pushing on words that don’t want to get out. These efforts become a habit, and then a reflex.

And what is the mechanism of stuttering ?

YLD : The people who stutter react to stress by tightening the muscles of their vocal cords. Shame paralyzes, and they make enormous efforts to hide their disability. It is for this reason that the mockery becomes disastrous, because under the sarcasm, the disorder increases. We often compare stuttering to an iceberg, the disorders of speech does not in representing the visible part, the most important is invisible : what are the disorders of communication and behavior. Result : a very poor self-esteem and, more importantly, a vicious circle, difficult to break without realizing it.

Is it that it is treatable really ?

YLD : first, the longer the rehabilitation is started early, the more it is spectacular in efficiency and speed. Then, a treatment that focuses only on the mechanism of speech has little chance of success. The simplest way, but unfortunately not the most known, is to treat oneself, with one master word : understand his stuttering. It is the least expensive method and most effective to cure : 30 minutes to an hour per day to do simple exercises. The significant improvements of the speech arrive in a few weeks and the stuttering goes away in a few months.

You should not hesitate to help of books or advice of a speech-language pathologist. But it must be borne in mind that stuttering cannot be eliminated from one day to the next, and look with great suspicion on the methods, claiming the “heal” in a few days. Stuttering is something that we do, and we can learn to change what you did ! But it takes time.

What are the people who stutter famous ?

YLD : there are many, and in all areas. We can quote Napoleon 1st, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, or Julia Roberts and the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
 

It is said that people who stutter do not stutter when they sing ? It is true or it is a legend ?

YLD : No, that is right, a person person who stutters stutters usually much less when she is alone, or feels alone, because, as he knows all too well the consequences, the person who stutters avoids stuttering by not speaking in public. He never stutters when he sings, when he plays a role, when he imitates someone, when it takes an accent, when he speaks at the pace of a metronome. It is also used in some methods of treatment. A recent example is the winner of The Voice last year, Lisandro Cuxi.