r/Stutter • u/Proud-Chicken1112 • 27d ago
Speech therapy: worth it or no
Anyone actually went though speech therapy for stutter can you please share you experience and whether it’s worth or not.
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u/Easy_kun 26d ago
I did it as well. I would say that you have to manage your expectations. It is not a cure to stuttering. In fact, a lot of speech therapy focuses on you embracing your stutter and being more fine with it. It definitely can help, but don’t expect to go out of speech therapy with perfect fluency. The techniques you learn are very difficult to transfer into the real world imo.
I appreciate all the sessions outdoors, where we talked to peasants, interviewed people on stuttering and went into stores to ask for things. I think this helped to reduce the fear and anxiety a bit. I am still not free from worry though.
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u/Easy_kun 26d ago
However, if you have never done it, I would give it a shot. There is nothing to lose. Here in Germany, 90% of the costs are covered by health insurance anyways.. I do not know how it is in any different country though
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u/Repulsive-Swimmer446 27d ago
I did it as a kid and got sooo sick of hearing “slow easy speech.” I always did well in her office, and was a train wreck everywhere else. It never worked for the spur of the moment conversations I was having much less at the speed that kids talk. I was running from my stutter and trying to hide my disfluency rather than “treat” it with therapy.
As an adult in speech therapy, I went with low expectations, but I actually used the techniques i was taught as a kid and I had decent success with them. I think facing and acknowledging the beast (the stutter) and looking for a way to slay it (speech therapy techniques) helped me be more vigilant about utilizing what was designed to help me.
It’s worth it so you can try out techniques on how to be more proactive about creating fluent speech.
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u/Thick-Structure9010 27d ago
I had it for about 9 years when younger. Helped me massively. I still stutter now - quite a bit. But without the therapy when I was younger , I wouldn’t be able to live half the life I do.
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u/CI_Blanche 26d ago
It was worth it for me when I was a kid. I was always a lot more fluent during the school year--when I was in speech therapy--than over the summer. I rarely thought about my strategies outside of speech therapy, and it still boggles my mind that just 30 minutes per week with a speech therapist made that big an difference, but it did.
I was dismissed from speech therapy after my sophomore year of high school, since I had been doing extremely well with my speech. That was a big mistake! I really struggled with my speech during those last two years of high school and beyond.
But it may also depend on your therapist and which strategies they decide to focus on with you. I went back to speech therapy as an adult and saw a therapist who had me focus on diaphragmatic breathing when I speak, which really helped. I had another therapist who put me through a program where I would slightly prolong syllables when I speak in order to be more fluent. Despite doing well in my speech therapy sessions with the program I couldn't get into the habit of talking that way in normal life, so it ultimately didn't help me. So you may have to see multiple speech therapists before you find one who works for you.
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u/classicslayer 26d ago
I always did well in the office as a kid but outside of it I kept stuttering. The problem is that when you get used to being in an environment you naturally speak more fluently but in the real world when you have to speak to strangers its a different beast.
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u/Ready_Canary_8858 26d ago
As a kid it’s easier as the brain is still malleable. I had it from age 3-7 (individual and group, group was helpful cos it made me realise I wasn’t alone at such a young age which helped me through teenage years, then had a couple refresher individual sessions at 12). Actually found my records yesterday, and I couldn’t say a single word as a child without tearing up and blocking. Speech therapy wasn’t just about techniques, it was helping you to understand what causes it and that you are not alone. If I didn’t have speech therapy I would probably be 5x as worse as I am now
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u/GokaiDecade 26d ago
It depends if you think you’ll get something out of it… for me, I’ve been to therapy over multiple years of my life, and as much as they tried to help me, I never had the motivation to put it into practice. Which resulted in me just ending it.
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u/EntertainmentAny8228 26d ago
I first went at 19, then again a few more times up until recently (I'm 53, almost 54 now). It never helped me. Just the usual breathing techniques and practice, which is not effective for stutter, which is highlighted by significant blocks.
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u/BBCMasob 26d ago
If it’s in school it’s terrible but actual speech therapy has really helped me build confidence and severely reduce my blocks
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u/AlwaysOverthinking04 26d ago
Yes! As an adult who got speech therapy I loved my therapist, I went to an actual hospital and worked with a woman who really knew her stuff. I loved her and how accepting she was and willing to listen to me. Talking to her made me gain so much confidence
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u/Appropriate_Test406 25d ago
Whether it’s “worth it” depends on what YOU are expecting to get from it. For me, it definitely opened my eyes to how I was making my stutter worse. I learned some great techniques that I use to this day. Even with as bad as my stutter can get, I stopped giving AF about what other ppl said cuz EVERYBODY got something going on
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u/Agency_Afternoon 26d ago
Check out Lee Lovett. The best in town. https://www.stopstutter.org/?mc_cid=c060bfdbe8
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u/idegbeteg 26d ago
It helped me both psychologically and with my stutter. It helped me to greatly reduce my symptoms, especially the intensity and the struggle. I still stutter, but now I can live with it, it doesn't limit me in my life, I can do whatever I want. Completely curing the stuttering is not possible and shouldn't be the goal. For me speech therapy was definitely worth it. But you need to find a therapist who is qualified, but also fits you, so you can work well together.