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A look at the mechanics of stuttering


YChang

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Purely anecdotal but when I worked, for several years, evaluating the medical records of children with disabilities I found it striking the number of children, especially boys whose problems began with a speech impairment. The progression was: speech impairment>being teased and taunted by their peers>refusal to attend school because of this peer rejection>deteriorating grades>behavior problems. Since that time I have noticed some of the mass shooters have/had speech impairments, the most recent being the Uvalde shooter. 

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Mel Tillis is not amused by your shenanigans.

He's actually quite interested, and touched that researchers care.

1 minute ago, Not that Bob said:

Purely anecdotal but when I worked, for several years, evaluating the medical records of children with disabilities I found it striking the number of children, especially boys whose problems began with a speech impairment. The progression was: speech impairment>being teased and taunted by their peers>refusal to attend school because of this peer rejection>deteriorating grades>behavior problems. Since that time I have noticed some of the mass shooters have/had speech impairments, the most recent being the Uvalde shooter. 

Goddamn, that's interesting, and it's a correlation that sadly makes sense.  I wonder if there's been any research along those lines?

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I had a boss when I was trucking that had a really bad stutter. He was the nicest, most generous man you ever want to meet. I had to try extremely hard not to finish his words for him because I knew how rude it was. But damn it was hard not to.

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30 minutes ago, Not that Bob said:

Purely anecdotal but when I worked, for several years, evaluating the medical records of children with disabilities I found it striking the number of children, especially boys whose problems began with a speech impairment. The progression was: speech impairment>being teased and taunted by their peers>refusal to attend school because of this peer rejection>deteriorating grades>behavior problems. Since that time I have noticed some of the mass shooters have/had speech impairments, the most recent being the Uvalde shooter. 

Yeah, not to tout my wife's service as a Speech-Language Pathologist...but your experience is so true and so truly heartbreaking.  Half of her kids end up in a referral loop where they come to her because some other behavioral therapist or PT or counselor or teacher said maybe the speech thing is an underlying cause of XYZ or she makes a referral of "Timmy/Sally is doing better at speech but there are signs of XYZ in other parts of their development." 

Think about how frustrating and maddening it must be for a 4 or 5 year old whose peers are truly able to communicate their needs and wants and dislikes for the first time to adults, and you're only one who can't.  It can lead to so many other issues in the near and long term.  Academics, athletics, social skills, being cool, that's all important for kids.  But if you can't communicate effectively as a kid, you're fucked.  

She's used to this now but what used to drive her up the fucking wall for years (besides me) was parents who saw speech therapy as this thing they should be doing outside of school (the kids in public schools only get 10-15 mts from a grad student and that's if their lucky).  So they'd start coming in after school/summers, or in the case of littles---before or after preK.  And the parents would be really dedicated at first, and do the exercises at home.  And after a couple months, it was this constant stream of excuses "Well, we can't make it in this week...he's got basketball camp" or "She's in dance class now, so we'll just do the exercises you gave as at home and check in with you next year."  In this rush to have a "well-rounded/cool" kid, the parents just fucked the child over for years by pulling them outta speech.  They come crawling back 18 months later, sobbing about their kid being taunted at school or falling behind in reading or acting out and hitting at home.  And she had to undo all that bullshit from a lost year.  

Best proof you need to stay on top of your child's speech---your insurance company is dying to pay for it.  They cover 100% of the cost and there isn't an insurer on the planet that won't approve my wife's practice.  She gets paid, in full, every 30 days.  Because insurance knows if a parent has a slight financial excuse not to do speech, odds are heavy that way more serious and expensive shit is right around the corner.   /rant&god bless SLP's

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not that  bob---The shift, at least for all the private practice folks she knows in Austin, started about ~3 years ago.  The "trend" seemed to be at the time about 70% insurance, 30% private pay.  With many of those insured getting anywhere from 50-80% of it covered.  At least for her network (which is in the dozens, if not 100 around Texas)...it seems to now be 90%+ insurance, 10% private pay so you don't have to hound the parent for money.  And of the insured, it's 80-100% covered for almost all plans (obviously there's still shitty insurance plans out there no matter what).  She used to spend probably an hour a day on the phone/online dealing with insurance companies.  She now spends maybe an hour a month catching on insurance bullshit.  YMMV.  

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1 hour ago, Not that Bob said:

Purely anecdotal but when I worked, for several years, evaluating the medical records of children with disabilities I found it striking the number of children, especially boys whose problems began with a speech impairment. The progression was: speech impairment>being teased and taunted by their peers>refusal to attend school because of this peer rejection>deteriorating grades>behavior problems. Since that time I have noticed some of the mass shooters have/had speech impairments, the most recent being the Uvalde shooter. 

I was born tongue-tied and for some reason never explained to me, did not have it snipped before learning to talk. I couldn’t say the “r” sound correctly which was fine as a toddler but started to be a problem in school.  I very clearly remember the counter guy at pizza slice place laughing at me for ordering “peppewoni” and also a friend’s dad asking me “will you ever grow out of baby-talk” at a birthday party.  I HATED speaking to people for years, even after I got the tongue tie snipped at about 8 years old and speech therapy. The therapy was a god-send.

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17 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I was born tongue-tied and for some reason never explained to me, did not have it snipped before learning to talk. I couldn’t say the “r” sound correctly which was fine as a toddler but started to be a problem in school.  I very clearly remember the counter guy at pizza slice place laughing at me for ordering “peppewoni” and also a friend’s dad asking me “will you ever grow out of baby-talk” at a birthday party.  I HATED speaking to people for years, even after I got the tongue tie snipped at about 8 years old and speech therapy. The therapy was a god-send.

Seriously, congrats on the therapy, and sorry you had that experience. 

Yeah - you never heard this as a kid..,

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In teaching public speaking at the college level, I had to stop the lecture nearly every time we talked about speech anxiety because the majority of students would say they were afraid of “stuttering” in front of the class and my reply was usually something like this:

 

Stuttering is a speech disorder.  You’re talking about vocal flubs, which is just tripping over your words because you’re going to fast or you’re scared.  There’s a massive difference.  I can fix your vocal clubs in the time frame of this class.  Those with the condition of stuttering need a speech pathologist, and that isn’t me. 

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7 minutes ago, Pancho said:

In teaching public speaking at the college level, I had to stop the lecture nearly every time we talked about speech anxiety because the majority of students would say they were afraid of “stuttering” in front of the class and my reply was usually something like this:

 

Stuttering is a speech disorder.  You’re talking about vocal flubs, which is just tripping over your words because you’re going to fast or you’re scared.  There’s a massive difference.  I can fix your vocal clubs in the time frame of this class.  Those with the condition of stuttering need a speech pathologist, and that isn’t me. 

Take me to the vocal clubs, clubs.  

To this day, I still get kind of a lockjaw stammer thing happening some mornings when I have to speak more than 10-15mts.  Happens at work, in volunteer settings, in class, etc.  And then I also get it at the end of the day.  My wife, the SLP, has been dumbfounded.  It's not so much a stutter, as my jaw shakes up and down really fast between words.  I speak rapidly to begin with but tend to over-annunciate as well.  I used to be in high demand recording textbooks for the blind & dyslexic because I read fast and pronounced with effect.  Most of the volunteers were old people who read about 7 words a minute which frustrates the fuck outta blind people, "I'm blind, not slow.  Hurry up, I got shit to do!"  

But yes, to your point.  When we get locked up in front of people, that's not stuttering.  And it's public speaking anxiety.  20 years of "public speaking" and I still get jammed up.  Sometimes, really, really bad depending on the time of day.  I try to tell young employees and students and mentees that for me, it's never gone away.  There's certainly coping mechanisms, delay tactics, and ways to physically incorporate it into your speech.  It kinda sucks though 'cause when it starts, it can last for one sentence or one hour.  And you just don't freakin' know.  Her colleagues tried to analyze it a few times and were just like, "I dunno, you sound authoritarian but also a bit drunk."  And I just accepted, "Yeah, that's pretty much my personality."  And the only other note is, "You put the listener at ease with humor and insight though, but then seem to tense up like you don't like people."  Like goddamn, SLP's get me more than my therapist!  

Anyway, parents really need to pay more attention to this.  Communicative challenges have so much more to do with learning disabilities, spectrum identification, developmental stunting, bullying, violence, self-esteem than all the traveling baseball/cheer squad bullshit combined.  

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I was/am a stutterer.  Pretty bad.  3+ years of speech therapy as a young child.  It still creeps up from time to time if I’m nervous, otherwise you would never know.  The upside to stuttering is that you develop a really good vocabulary at a young age, because you learn to pivot to a synonym if you can feel that the word you want to say isn’t going to happen.

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12 minutes ago, conVINCEd said:

I was/am a stutterer.  Pretty bad.  3+ years of speech therapy as a young child.  It still creeps up from time to time if I’m nervous, otherwise you would never know.  The upside to stuttering is that you develop a really good vocabulary at a young age, because you learn to pivot to a synonym if you can feel that the word you want to say isn’t going to happen.

That’s pretty cool. 

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On 8/24/2022 at 9:59 AM, YGIFS said:

Yeah, not to tout my wife's service as a Speech-Language Pathologist...but your experience is so true and so truly heartbreaking.  Half of her kids end up in a referral loop where they come to her because some other behavioral therapist or PT or counselor or teacher said maybe the speech thing is an underlying cause of XYZ or she makes a referral of "Timmy/Sally is doing better at speech but there are signs of XYZ in other parts of their development." 

Think about how frustrating and maddening it must be for a 4 or 5 year old whose peers are truly able to communicate their needs and wants and dislikes for the first time to adults, and you're only one who can't.  It can lead to so many other issues in the near and long term.  Academics, athletics, social skills, being cool, that's all important for kids.  But if you can't communicate effectively as a kid, you're fucked.  

She's used to this now but what used to drive her up the fucking wall for years (besides me) was parents who saw speech therapy as this thing they should be doing outside of school (the kids in public schools only get 10-15 mts from a grad student and that's if their lucky).  So they'd start coming in after school/summers, or in the case of littles---before or after preK.  And the parents would be really dedicated at first, and do the exercises at home.  And after a couple months, it was this constant stream of excuses "Well, we can't make it in this week...he's got basketball camp" or "She's in dance class now, so we'll just do the exercises you gave as at home and check in with you next year."  In this rush to have a "well-rounded/cool" kid, the parents just fucked the child over for years by pulling them outta speech.  They come crawling back 18 months later, sobbing about their kid being taunted at school or falling behind in reading or acting out and hitting at home.  And she had to undo all that bullshit from a lost year.  

Best proof you need to stay on top of your child's speech---your insurance company is dying to pay for it.  They cover 100% of the cost and there isn't an insurer on the planet that won't approve my wife's practice.  She gets paid, in full, every 30 days.  Because insurance knows if a parent has a slight financial excuse not to do speech, odds are heavy that way more serious and expensive shit is right around the corner.   /rant&god bless SLP's

Welcome to Surly...I too approve your wife's practice 😉

Srsly through, thank you for a great, insightful post. While I knew speech impediments were difficult,  I didn't realize how much so.  Thinking back to my school days,  I knew of 4 or 5 kids who had stuttering problems.  Looking back at how they wound up as adults? * Not good, not good at all.*

*please note that none of these folks EVER received any kind of aid or help with their disabilities.  Small town Texas schools in the 60s either didn't have the resources or flat didn't care. If I remember correctly all of their families struggled financially and those kids were teased, and ridiculed mercilessly.  We did have a  "speech class", but it wasn't a therapeutic thing, it was to teach public speaking. 

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