Patient Profile: Fluency & Stuttering Management

SP/Beck: Good Morning MC. Thanks for agreeing to share your story today.

MC: Thanks for the opportunity to discuss stuttering, share, educate and inform.

SP/Beck: I know that your speech-language-pathologist (SLP) has been very pleased with your progress and your participation in the management of your stuttering. Can you please tell me a little about your personal history with stuttering?

MC: As a severe stutterer for nearly 40 years, fear and anxiety were the greatest impediments to personal growth, happiness and improved fluency. I constantly battled my internal ''fear voice'' that let me know every day that IT (stuttering) was in control. I struggled through traditional therapies, and some ''snake oil'' approaches, constantly obsessing over speaking situation after speaking situation, as I was my own worst critic.

I was always looking for that quick fix or magic potion. That little piece of advice or strategy that would finally propel me into fluency. For me, in the end what I found was that the answer had always been hidden in the depths of my own character. In front of the words I labored to form, was the WALL -- FEAR -- the effect of which was unhappiness and continual frustration.

I began intensive speech therapy in May 2002 with Janet Skotko and have enjoyed rapid and significant success. I have made great strides towards my life long dream of fluency, not just through Janet's experience but because I made a conscious decision to become a student of my own disorder. Through research, evaluation and then separation, I have transformed stuttering into an IT that while a part of me, IT does not define who I am or what I can accomplish in life. It has been a truly fascinating and extremely fulfilling journey.