Stuttering: "Conquering" stuttering (and fear of the phone)

Blog background

I have been deeply involved in sharing my understanding with fellow stutterers, speech and language pathologists and researchers, especially in the 90's. The older part of this blog reports some the discussions I was having on a professional list at that time. Most of the discussions are still relevant today.

I remained involved in the stuttering community, mostly as participant in activities of the National Stuttering Association (NSA), and occasional workshop leader. Since my retirement I have returned to writing, and I just developed an audio course on fluency improvement. A link for the course can be found in this blog, as well as posts based on more recent discussions I am having in a Stuttering Facebook group.

Monday, April 01, 1996

"Conquering" stuttering (and fear of the phone)

A list reader asks how any of us "conquered" stuttering..

Like probably everyone else, I've been waiting for someone else to answer you... The problem is that you are asking THE question everyone wishes they had the definitive answer to! If you lurk a while longer you'll see that we have varied opinions and heated discussions on this matter. Some of us also feel that they have indeed "conquered" stuttering, but this has not ended our discussions: how did you do it? Does "conquering" mean the same to you as it does to me? Would it have happened anyhow in time? Do MY stuttering and YOUR stuttering actually have the same cause? ... and it goes on and on, and it will go on and on until someone comes up with THE answer, THE drug, or whatever... that works for everybody...

You might want to gain access to some of the past discussions stored in
various repositories (an update anyone?). In any case, in time, you'll
find ample food for thought and good suggestions on this list. Just
a short while ago there were numerous suggestions circulated on the
phone problem. If someone collected them s/he could send them to you
(hopefully somebody has already done it privately)

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Biography

Dr. Colombano is a retired NASA scientist with a Ph.D. in Biophysical Sciences. He struggled with stuttering in his youth and during most of his career, and he worked on understanding and dealing with the problem, ultimately reaching a level of fluency that is viewed as completely "normal". He is not a SLP (Speech Language Pathologist), and does not claim to be one, but most SLP's do not specialize in Stuttering Therapy and there are aspects of stuttering that are addressed more by "Coaching" than "Therapy". These are the aspects he covers and which are complementary to Stuttering Therapy. He has been a member of the National Stuttering Association (NSA), has given talks at their conferences and has been chapter leader in one of their self-help groups in San Francisco. He received year-long training at the Interchange Counseling Institute in San Francisco, and his coaching modality for stutterers has been based on the content of this course.