| I attended speech therapy on a regular basis | | | | in life and one of them is to never accept second |
| from the ages of four and eighteen. Why? Well it | | | | best. To accept the fact that I had a stammer |
| was because I had, for whatever reason, | | | | would be to accept second best. |
| developed a stammer when I was four years of | | | | Then there was the time when another, different, |
| age. But why did you attend speech therapy for | | | | speech therapist advised me that there was no |
| fourteen years? It seems rather a long time, did | | | | point in dreaming of achieving fluency as there |
| the therapy not work for you? It was helpful to a | | | | was no cure for stammering. I went home and |
| point but it did not provide me with the real | | | | had a good cry that day. Yes I know that boys |
| answers that I was looking for, the answers that | | | | are not supposed to cry but I just could not help |
| would enable me to achieve fluency. So why did | | | | it on this particular day. The next day I told my |
| you continue to attend the therapy for fourteen | | | | parents what the speech therapist had said and I |
| years then? Well I suppose it was because there | | | | stated to them that I did not want to continue |
| were a lack of alternative therapies available at | | | | the therapy with this negative person. |
| the time. | | | | All of the above may seem a bit like doom and |
| As you have seen from the opening paragraph of | | | | gloom however there is a happy ending to this |
| this article traditional speech and language therapy | | | | article. At the age of twenty-two I was able to |
| did not prove to be as successful as I had hoped | | | | achieve my dream of overcoming the stammer. I |
| it would have been. In fact some of the advice | | | | had managed to formulate my own stammering |
| that the speech therapists had given me was | | | | cure techniques and after a year of working |
| actually, in my opinion, quite damaging and wrong. | | | | extremely hard at the practice side of things, the |
| I will never forget the day that a certain speech | | | | techniques became a natural part of my speech |
| therapist advised me to try and come to terms | | | | and fluency was attained. This was all thirteen |
| with the fact that I had a stammer. In his opinion | | | | years ago and I am happy to report that there |
| if I was able to accept the fact that I had a | | | | are now specialist speech therapy courses for |
| stammer then things would become far easier for | | | | people who stammer which are run by people |
| me. Accept the fact that I had a speech | | | | who have previously had this form of speech |
| impediment, are you for real? This was something | | | | impediment. |
| that I was never going to do, I have many beliefs | | | | |