postr/StutterAugust 11, 2016

Speaking in a sing-song (or song-like) voice

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Speaking in a sing-song (or song-like) voice I'm not going to say "Hey, this will work for everyone; after all if it worked for me, it can work for you", however I wanted to share this with everyone. I have a really bad speech impediment, and it's caused a ton of social anxiety. I mean a ton, and I'm sure others have felt or still do feel the same way, wherein you're afraid to say because you're afraid to stutter. It's held me back a lot in life, but I found a technique that works for me. For some extra backstory, my issue with stuttering is that at the beginning of each word, there is a chance of me stuttering, that increases with the anxiety that stems from the possibility of me stuttering. The more self-conscious I am about stuttering, the more likely I am to stutter. This is still true, even with this technique. Any pauses or gaps in my speech can cause me to stutter, and especially at the beginning (opening up; imagine going up to a random person to say "Hi", it's hard to start speaking right away, for me at least). Anyway, this technique is pretty much an attempt to minimize the 'beginnings' of each word by making them blend all into a single-word... well not really, just that, there shouldn't be any pauses between words, as if you're saying them as a word itself. I don't mean to cluster them all together either to the point its incomprehensible. What I mean is packing them together like a song. It's a known fact that while singing, stuttering seems to go away (and correct me if I am wrong on this one), so composing speech like a song (which is what I mean by sing-song) seems to be a viable solution. The biggest issue with the 'sing-song' voice is that you shouldn't sound like you're singing, or rather you should actually be singing. The key-point is that all words must blend together in some way. In all the speech therapy I've gone to before (haven't in such a long time), this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxzU19f5Jd8) kind of helped me. I'm not saying it will 100% work for you, but it demonstrates the technique. It isn't particular to stuttering at all, I'll say that, it just happened to work. The idea behind using this technique for stuttering can be summed up as "Whenever a child or adult who stutters talks differently than the way he usually does, he will be fluent" - [Source](https://clas.uiowa.edu/comsci/research/stuttering-research-lab/faqs) To attempt a contrast between my normal mannerisms of speech and the new technique-way, If I said the sentence "Hello Mr. Smith, my name is John Doe, and it is a pleasure to meet you" originally it would come out as "Hello" "Mr. Smith," "my name" "is John" "Doe," "and" "it is a pleasure" "to meet you" Looking back reflectively, I realize now that any of the above pauses could trigger stuttering. With a sing-song voice, it sounds like... "Hello Mr. Smith" "my name is John Doe and it is a pleasure to meet you" Wherein those pauses can potentially cause stuttering, but also is less prevalent because I am speaking (or attempting to speak) in a voice which is foreign to my own. If you can't imagine yourself literally pausing, replace 'pause' with a filler word like 'Uh" and "Umm". These words completely disrupt the flow of speech. In particular, the way I make these blend is by allowing a word to drag on for longer than it should, and adding emphasis to certain words to make those dragged on words sound less forced and unnatural. Once again, this may not work for everyone, but it's working for me currently, so I decided "hey, why not share it"

Themes

Causes & VariabilityAnticipation & AvoidanceIdentity & Disability

Subthemes

Situational VariabilityAvoidance & SubstitutionOverthinking & MonitoringAuthenticity vs. Masking