I work in customer service talking on the phone all day, I had a really bad stutter (I won't do the guys and girls on here the injustice of claiming I have one since I speak perfectly now, though I don't think it ever goes away). It pops up when I'm low on confidence like a few months ago where I had to replace words like "starts" with "begins" on my script and write beside the phrase "privacy statement" privacies datement. I speak all day these days, we're busier than then, and stuttering is something I completely don't do. When I was 16 I nearly pissed myself in English class like many on here I'm sure, just waiting my turn to read a chapter. God damn it, every crushing humiliating minute felt like an hour. I've said this before, and I suppose it's like that one previously-fat personal trainer hanging around a fitness forum. Is his advice really worth anything? Not really, people are vastly different, which is why you shouldn't assume so negatively that a stutterer can't do certain things. I'm so glad I never heard that word - stutterer. For I never let it become me. I decided one day, on a fortunate spell of confidence (girlfriend or something like that) that I would just be like everyone else. I spoke slowly and calmly. I watched a lot of comedy, and saw how Stephen Fry and posh or well-off or intelligent people like professors take time to say what they mean, and they dance around with their accents and emphases. I did that, just took my time. Make the fuckers wait. If I stuttered, which happened a lot, I would give myself a weird look, like "what was that" and start again. It was never perfect, nothing's perfect. But I just stopped being a "stutterer", when I stuttered I would say "excuse me" in an apologies-for-speaking-so-fast way and continue, I applied for a talking job and I suppose I just had bigger things to worry about like being unemployed for the rest of my life. I'm 22 today, I don't recall having a major stuttering problem since about 16. I've been fighting people's ideas on religion and politics, watching people speaking almost 24-7, and just over time realising I'm no different than my less intelligent best friend. When you have a stutter, you have a bit more right to say "fuck these people." I suspect it can be made permanent, by parents and speech therapists (oh I had a few, never liked them). If any of this is useful to anyone, take it and use it and share it. It's just one person's story about how it's not always a permanent thing, unless you choose to make it that way. The vestiges remain, by the way. I have many reasons to dislike what I do, but there's an irrational discomfort with people and speaking that was born in my stuttering days, and there's added satisfaction when I finish, more than for others. My lasting impression of stuttering is that I'm doing a masters in physics, and who the hell has the time to waste on a stutter. Just relax, speak slowly and break the habit.