Help for stutterers with ‘smooth speech’

Press, 8 March 1989, Page 13

Help for stutterers with ‘smooth speech’

By

SARONA IOSEFA

A stutter that once stopped him from making or answering telephone calls has been overcome by the president of the Speak Easy Association, Mr Roger Ryan, of Auckland. Mr Ryan attributed his improved speech to a “smooth speech” technique developed by two Australian doctors during the 19705. He attended group sessions for two weeks in Auckland where six stutterers were trained by a therapist to slow their speech to 50 syllables a minute until they sounded like wound-down gramaphones. _ “It was not until the first few days were through that you realised you didn’t stutter the whole time you were speaking at that speed,” Mr Ryan said. Gradually the stutterers were brought up in speech until they reached normal speaking rates. “While you are talking slowly you are trained to prolong your words so that words flow together

easily. You’re also taught to talk as you are breathing out so that a buzzing in the larynx helps deliver your words. “It’s a lot to remember, and becomes a skill that you’ve got to harness if you’re going to get over a stutter,” Mr Ryan said. Mr Ryan said the “smooth speech” technique did not work for everyone. In his group session he was the only participant that had not digressed. The failure rate could be attributed to a lack of the sort of continuing support which groups such as Speak Easy were aiming to provide he said. “If people know we’re there, they can seek help if they stutter or know someone . that does,” Mr Ryan said. Mr Ryan was visiting Christchurch as part of a Winston Churchill Fellowship, to meet other Speak Easy Groups. Other support groups for those suffering from stuttering had requested he visit them as far south as Invercargill. The Speak Easy Association had been set

up as an umbrella group to pool resources and act as a lobbby group to the Government and health organisations. Mr Ryan said one of his top priorities in Christchurch was to push for smooth speech intensive courses to be set up. But, like most health issues it came back to funds. Many organisations treated stuttering as a "no-risk-to-life” condition that could be pushed further down the priority list. “To stutterers of course it does affect life but, it’s up to us to make the health sectors and public know that we are there and we will lobby,” Mr Ryan said. There was no known cause of stuttering but evidence showed children still stuttering by age 11 were likely to be afflicted for life. Mr Ryan said that if a father stuttered, there was a one in three chance that one of his sons would stutter and a one in 10 chance that a daughter would. Stutterers made up 1 per cent of New Zealands population, he said.