Following is the seventh in a series of interviews that shaped the narrative of my next book: VoiceS Unearthed: The Impact of Early Intervention on Those Who Continue to Stutter. Names have been changes for reasons of confidentiality.
41-year-old Archie
Early therapy for Archie was mostly fluency shaping. His feelings about therapy changed when he was 10 and he met a speech therapist with long, unkept hair who also stuttered. Archie says, “This person cared about how I felt, not just how I was talking.”
“I started stuttering when I was three and therapy started when I was about six. My parents were confused and didn’t know what was out there for resources. I remember them telling me that I had a stutter when I was around six.
My early therapy mostly focused on the therapist talking to the parents as I was playing. I remember being confused over what they were being told at the time. Was it the environment, genes, parents talking too fast, were they were to blame? There was no conversation about needing to be fixed. It was a very warm environment and my relationship with the therapist was good. I did enjoy it. I remember being allowed to play with toys. When I was there, it was okay.
Then therapy changed to focus more on fixing. I remember working with trains a lot – joining up words. The approach was to take my time, take a deep breath, think about sentences as train carriages – join all the words up. I remember concentrating on my breathing, what words I wanted to say, and trying to not take a break in my sentence. My fluency was good when I was using techniques, but it was very tiring. There was too much going on in my brain. I was very confused as to why I was fluent in the clinic setting but couldn’t keep doing it.
My parents’ anxiety was so annoying when I was younger. My mom wanted to talk about it all the time and my dad didn’t. Mom was more ‘How many times did you stutter? Did you practice your techniques? etc.’ One day my dad asked me how school was, and I remember talking and I was really blocking, and he was reading the paper and lifted it so he couldn’t see me. That always stayed with me and when I got older, he shared that he stuttered as a kid and he felt shame and guilt and felt accountable for it. Not telling me was a crap thing to do, but I understand that more now that I’m a parent.
My therapy stopped when I was 10 because the therapist moved out of the area. I went five to six months without therapy and started again at the beginning of the school year. I felt a connection with my new therapist because he was a guy who stuttered and had long, unkept hair. He was the first person I had met who had a stutter.
I still didn’t really want to go and talk about it again – start all over. My parents were very concerned because I had grown up in the same school and the teachers and young people knew me. Now I was ready to go off to high school – new students and teachers. We still did some fluency shaping in therapy because of the need for measures and outputs. That was about half, the other half, we talked. He asked me how I felt, what my fears were – so that was an eye-opener. This person had forged a career and stuttered. This person cared about how I felt, not just how I was talking.
I saw him for two and one-half years and he did something that was cool. He hired out a studio space and he and a couple of therapists set up a camp. He asked my parents to send me. My parents thought it was a great idea for me to meet other people who stutter. I really just wanted to hang with friends. My parents didn’t speak about it for a couple of months and then in July, my dad got me up and I thought I was going to soccer camp. We were half-way there and he asked why I was in my soccer camp outfit because we were going to this other camp – which was right next door, so I saw all my friends getting out of cars to go to soccer camp. I was mad.
But when I first saw a kid who stuttered, it was powerful. We just hung around for four days. We were gaining a lot of confidence. Part of it was to do with fluency but part of it was to meet others. We did exercises like having to buy a theater ticket. Mostly we just had fun and it made me aware that there were others out there. Unfortunately, the camp only happened once.
High school was daunting. During that time, I stopped therapy. I don’t know why. I don’t know if it was because my fluency improved, or at least I was using the technique in the clinic setting successfully? I just don’t think I spoke a lot. I know I avoided – I was very good at avoiding. My stutter wasn’t as strong as I got older which made it easier to hide.
It was hard when my therapy stopped. A lot of the therapy was talk therapy – a lot of sharing. ‘What do you find hard in school,’ things like that. I wasn’t being told what to do, it was just good to just talk. He never advised me to use techniques. He provided them as options and let me make the decision.
What I know would have helped was more support for my parents. They were great, but I think it would have helped for our family unit to access other families and for me to know there were other people out there who stuttered. Not practicing fluency – just being with other kids who stutter. I don’t know how much training my first therapist had if any. A parent group would have been helpful for me and my parents. Being provided with other options in therapy – not just focusing on fluency. Being able to talk about my feelings was what I wanted as well. When I was six, I just wanted to play. I was hyper-aware and not being given the opportunity to speak about it.“