Ever wondered what it’s like for a person who cannot speak like most people?
A lot may take their speech for granted. After all, it could well be our most valuable asset with many influential people throughout history changing the lives of millions through the power of their voice.
But according to the NHS, stammering affects one in 50 adults. And for them, life is very different, with even the simplest of sentences difficult to say.
Stammering is when an individual experiences disruptions or disfluency in their speech. They may also have difficulty in saying words when in conversation, causing their flow of speech to be disrupted. They may also repeat, pause or substitute words to make it easier for them to vocalise.
According to the NHS, stammering is a neurological condition which originated from the part of the brain where speech is developed. However it can also be caused by physical trauma like strokes in extreme cases.
I have a stammer myself, and I can find social situations awkward to deal with.
I especially found words beginning with vowels difficult to say, including my own name, which was extremely frustrating.
However for many others, it’s worse.
Artist Craig Lomax is a member of the Manchester Stammer support group, and has struggled with his extreme speech impediment throughout his entire life.
He said: “During high school, in woodwork class, I made a light box that I had to be scored on.
“To be scored on the project, we had to be filmed doing a presentation to the entire class, and I begged and begged the tutor, asking please do not film me.
“I begged my mum to speak to him, and begged the teacher but he could not give special treatment to anyone.
“I could not sleep for about a week, I was petrified, and when it came to the presentation, everyone else did theirs in three minutes each, I spent 15 minutes on mine.
“I suffered every twitch, I was out of breath, my eye contact was all over the place, it was absolutely soul-crushing, and I just remember looking at him and thinking that I hate you so much.”
Lomax grew up in Liverpool with his family and worked in his dad’s factory at 16 years old.
He said: “When I clocked out of my shift one evening with my dad, someone asked me a question, and I stammered pretty bad.
“And my stammer is worse when I’m tired, and I just couldn’t get my words out, I was pulling faces and all sorts.
“And she didn’t know I had a stammer, so it was a bit awkward and pretty embarrassing for me.
“So after I finally got out my answer, and after she walked away, my dad just blurted out the words, ‘Oh Jesus Christ, that was embarrassing.’”
According to the NHS, two in three children who have a stammer will grow to speak fluently. An estimate of one in 50 adults have a stammer.
One such adult is Paul Scott, furniture tutor from Ashton-Under-Lyne, Manchester.
He said: “In primary school, I always noticed that I had a stammer, and then in secondary school there were times when I didn’t feel good about myself and I got really frustrated.
“I could not get certain words out, I just did not like myself very much.”
The 53-year-old also cited one incident which happened because of his stammer, he said: “When I once phoned up for a taxi, the person on the other end was taking the mickey a little bit, she asked, are you an alien? I was like what? I was really upset by that.
“It gave me a determination to prove people wrong, the next day I phoned up the taxi company to speak to the manager, to say that one of their operators was rude to me.
“I have a stammer and that was a disgrace, however I don’t think he did much.”
Scott attended various speech therapy classes in his mid 20s until he came across the Starfish Project, a three day course which specializes in costal breathing when improving one’s speech.
Costal breathing is a technique of when intercostal muscles contract when breathing.
The 53-year-old said: “The way it’s helped me (self confidence) is by doing the Starfish course and learning to accept myself for who I am, and internally just getting to know myself.”
With the costal breathing technique, Scott learned to take short and sharp deep breaths before every word, which gradually improved his speech.
The next stage of the course was to answer telephone calls and approach people in public to ask various simple questions.
Scott describes stammering as an iceberg, saying: “The iceberg above the water is what you see, it’s the blocking and all that.
“But it’s the iceberg underneath the water which can be pretty massive actually, it’s the self hate, hiding it, not feeling good about yourself, avoiding situations.
“As well as, not going to places like parties and sitting in the corner because you are too frightened to talk to people.”
However, Scott also expressed the importance of self improvement. “I just thought that I don’t want to live my life like this anymore, I want to seek action,” he said.
“I just had this determination and thought that I am going to do this, you only live this life once and I am going to do it to the best of my ability.
“So that by the end of my life, I am going to look back and say that I have done everything in my power to be the person that I wanted to be.”
Max Gattie, is a stammering researcher who graduated from the University of Manchester, he specializes in cognitive neuroscience and also has been studying stammering since 2011.
He said: “in terms of the brain mechanisms, you could think of what’s called the proximal and distal causes, so the proximal things are the causes really close to the moment of stuttering, and what you’re looking for there is the bits of the brain which are controlling the speech muscles, and you find when stuttering that they work completely different to people’s that don’t stutter.”
