Some people would say that stuttering and shyness go hand in hand. If you have a stuttering problem you are also likely to be shy. Would you agree with this statement? Why are people shy? How can you overcome your shyness?

My name is Stephen Hill; I am from the Midlands, in England. I was unfortunate enough to develop a stutter/stammer when I was around the age of four. This frustrating speech impediment had a major impact on my whole life as I was growing up and continued to cause me problems for the next eighteen years. Thankfully at the age of twenty-two I was able to find the solutions and techniques to enable me to eradicate the stutter. I am now thirty-four years of age and am very much appreciating my ability to speak fluently, free from the fear of stuttering.

As well as the frustration of having a stutter I also would become annoyed with seemingly everybody referring to me as shy. He is so quiet isn’t he? He is not very talkative is he? He is not very confident is he? Well would you be if you had a stutter?

The bigger question would have to be whether I would have been shy had I been able to speak fluently as a child. I do not think I would have been. Deep down I was actually a very confident person. I had a passion for sport and had a determination to become the best. I liked the feeling of winning and the adulation that came with it. In a way you could say that I was a bit of a show off.

The stutter made me become something that I was not, quiet, shy, timid, scared, moody and also a bit of a loner. In fact I would often look at shy people and think, what have you got to be shy about? You can talk fluently; you look fine, what is your problem? I guess it could be in their genes.

Mom, I really do not want to go to speech therapy this morning, it does not work, they have not got a clue what they are talking about, they don’t understand me or what it is like to have a stutter, please do not make me go. I clearly remember making such a plea, on more than occasion, when I was a child. I had a speech impediment and was desperate to find a solution, I soon realised however that speech therapy was not the answer.

I am quite sure that speech therapy is more than beneficial for certain types of speech impediment, stuttering however is very complex and is something that is very difficult to comprehend for people who have not had the impediment themselves.

To be fair to my parents there were not many options available at the time. Where else could she have taken me for therapy? This was way before the birth of the internet.

I first attended speech therapy at the age of four, I was still being asked to attend their classes fully ten years later. You may now see why I was so reluctant to attend. Ten years of stuttering therapy and I was now stuttering more than ever.

I often felt a sense of guilt, maybe it was my fault, maybe I was not trying hard enough. I felt as if I was letting my parents down, this was probably why I did keep attending the speech therapy classes, as a way of pleasing them. My parents were no doubt hoping the problem would just disappear on its own accord and were not fully aware of badly the stutter affected my life in any case.

The internet has opened up a whole new range of choices in stuttering treatments. No longer do people solely have to rely on traditional forms of speech therapy. By entering a phrase such as stuttering treatments or stuttering therapy into the search box of one of the major search engines, such as Google, will provide people with a multitude of options, one of which is sure to suit their needs.

Steve Hill is a speech coach from Birmingham, he has a number of websites including:
Stuttering treatment
Information about stuttering
Stuttering therapies

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Hill

Mom, I really do not want to go to speech therapy this morning, it does not work, they have not got a clue what they are talking about, they don’t understand me or what it is like to have a stutter, please do not make me go. I clearly remember making such a plea, on more than occasion, when I was a child. I had a speech impediment and was desperate to find a solution, I soon realised however that speech therapy was not the answer.

I am quite sure that speech therapy is more than beneficial for certain types of speech impediment, stuttering however is very complex and is something that is very difficult to comprehend for people who have not had the impediment themselves.

To be fair to my parents there were not many options available at the time. Where else could she have taken me for therapy? This was way before the birth of the internet.

I first attended speech therapy at the age of four, I was still being asked to attend their classes fully ten years later. You may now see why I was so reluctant to attend. Ten years of stuttering therapy and I was now stuttering more than ever.

I often felt a sense of guilt, maybe it was my fault, maybe I was not trying hard enough. I felt as if I was letting my parents down, this was probably why I did keep attending the speech therapy classes, as a way of pleasing them. My parents were no doubt hoping the problem would just disappear on its own accord and were not fully aware of badly the stutter affected my life in any case.

The internet has opened up a whole new range of choices in stuttering treatments. No longer do people solely have to rely on traditional forms of speech therapy. By entering a phrase such as stuttering treatments or stuttering therapy into the search box of one of the major search engines, such as Google, will provide people with a multitude of options, one of which is sure to suit their needs.

Steve Hill is a speech coach from Birmingham, he has a number of websites including:
Stuttering treatment
Information about stuttering
Stuttering therapies

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Hill

Are you looking for information about speech therapy classes in London? Where do you find information about speech therapy classes in London? In this article I will be providing ideas of where to look to find a professional speech therapist that can help you with your speech problems.

I know all about having problems with my speech after having had a stutter for eighteen years. I am now fortunate enough to be able to enjoy life as a fluent speaker; this is something I had often dreamed about in the past. The stutter had started to affect my speech when I was just four years of age and despite many years of speech therapy I found I was becoming less fluent or fluid as I became older. After living life with this horrible stuttering speech impediment I finally managed to eradicate the problem when I was at the age of twenty-two.

So where can people find a suitable speech therapist? It all depends what you are looking for I suppose. In my opinion I like to seek help from a specialist in a certain area, I therefore would not be looking for just an average speech therapist; I would be looking for a speech therapist that specialised in stuttering. For somebody who has a lisp I would therefore be searching for a speech therapist who specialised in lisps.

By far and away the best place to locate such a specialist is via the internet. Searching under a key word phrase such as lisps, stuttering, speech therapy for stuttering, to name just a few, will provide you with a multitude of options. Some of these therapies are available in the form of self-help therefore the location of the therapist may not be an issue.

As well as the internet people may want to consult their local doctor or hospital and they can also look in the yellow pages.

Over the years the speech impediment of stuttering and stammering has often appeared in the news. A person who has a stutter has a difficulty in speaking certain words or sounds and this may come across as a repetitive attempt at speaking something. Keeping stuttering in the news can have many benefits, some of which will be discussed in this article.

Gareth Gates is the most recent high profile person to have a pronounced stutter. He showed tremendous courage to appear on a national television show in an attempt to win a music recording deal. Week after week people would watch him struggle to answer questions from the shows hosts. It personally made me cringe; I actually could not believe he was putting himself through the ordeal.

I am somebody who had a stutter for eighteen years, during this period I would do anything not to stutter and for this reason became a bit of a loner - I could speak fluently when talking to myself. There is no way that I would have ever appeared on the type of show that Gareth appeared on, not even for a million pounds.

People like Gareth help to keep the subject of stuttering in the spotlight, therefore ensuring that people keep talking about it. This can help people to understand and learn about the different types of treatment for stuttering and about what is required for people who want to achieve fluency.

There are likely to be more famous people who stutter in the future, this can only be a good thing.

If you have a stutter, do not shut yourself away in the way that I used to, have some guts like Gareth and make the most of life.

Steve Hill is a speech coach from Birmingham, he has a number of websites including:
stuttering
information about stuttering
stuttering therapy

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Hill

I would often say to myself that if only I could some how manage to gain confidence that my stutter would then surely go. It was a bit of a catch twenty-two situation in reality. The reason that I had a lack of confidence was mainly due to the fact that I had the stutter. What I felt was required was some form of confidence course for people who stutter.

I have never accepted second best in life and this is one of the reasons that I used to become frustrated when attending speech therapy. At the time it seemed that this was the only form of treatment for people who had a stutter. The speech therapists however seemed clueless about what it was like living life with this horrible stutter hanging over one’s head and freely admitted that they were unable to help cure it. To be fair to them they were trying their best and at least they were being honest.

This was still however not satisfactory to me, I could not bare the thought of having the stutter for the whole of my life.

There seemed to be certain patterns attached to my own stutter. I would stutter more when I was tired, when I was under pressure, when I was stressed out and when I was feeling down or depressed. If I was in a real happy mood I would hardly stutter at all.

At the age of around sixteen I started to drink alcohol. This was another big turning point in my life as I found that the alcohol would increase my confidence and that the stutter would then slowly disappear. This of course was a false confidence but it was another example of how stuttering and confidence are inter-linked.

A few years later at the age of twenty-two I decided to attempt to complete this stuttering jigsaw. It took me about eleven years however I did finally manage to eradicate the stutter from my life completely.

Steve Hill is a speech coach from Birmingham, he has a number of websites including:
stuttering
information about stuttering
stuttering therapy

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Hill

Sometimes innovations come from learned men in laboratories. Other times they come from positive-thinking people with a burning desire to do something and who lack the education to know that it can’t be done. Consider the examples set by Wilber and Orville Wright, Thomas Edison and many others…

Now a businessman in Coventry, England, named Wynford Dore has come up with a dyslexia treatment that is getting amazing results. Mr. Dore was not an expert in medicine, but his daughter Susie, now 35, suffered from dyslexia so severe she tried to commit suicide. A concerned Father, he set out to DO something. Mr Dore has been quoted as saying, “Experts have argued for 50 years about whether dyslexia exists or not. They have argued about what causes it, how to define it, how to diagnose it and how to treat it.

“My daughter Susie attempted to take her own life while the so-called experts argued among themselves. We focused on solving the problem rather than arguing about its existence.” [Typical no-nonsense direct approach that drives the Academicians and PhD’s wild. At the time the Wright brothers made their audacious experiment at Kitty Hawk, learned men in famous Universities were arguing over aerodynamic theories, some of which ‘proved’ that a bumblebee could not fly…]

The dyslexia treatment that Mr. Dore came up with is aimed at improving co-ordination. It uses an exercise regimen to stimulate the cerebellum section of the brain. Inspiration came from exercises developed for astronauts, who seem to develop temporary dyslexia-like symptoms with long periods in space.

On the surface, the exercises, like tossing a bean bag from hand to hand, walking down stairs backwards with your eyes closed, or standing on a ball, seem to have little to do with reading. But recent controlled studies in England involving school children with dyslexia and ADHD, have demonstrated amazing results. The experts are slack-jawed with astonishment! Dyslexic subjects who earlier only progressed 7 months in a year, after taking the “brain gym” dyslexia treatment, completed 20 months of reading training in the next similar time period.

Furthermore, 10 out of 12 with ADHD showed no symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder afterward. 80% of the dyslexic students were symptom-free. Some of the teachers of the dyslexic and ADHD students tested them afterward and pronouncing them as being apparently “cured”!

Furthermore, the dyslexic students taking the dyslexia treatment-training continued their progress in the third year of the studies, some even progressing faster than their non-dyslexic classmates!

Mr. Dole has founded a chain of training centers (11 or more at this point) to offer dyslexia treatment in an 18 month course now available in parts of England. He points out that his dyslexia treatment is drug-free and thus risk free.

For more details about dyslexia treatment and how to test for dyslexia, visit: Dyslexia Treatment

For information about adult dyslexia testing (that you can do at home or from anywhere), visit: Adult Dyslexia Test|Home Dyslexia Test

Jorge Chavez is a researcher, analyst and writer at http://overcoming-dyslexia.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jorge_Chavez

I can not bare living with this stutter anymore, how can I overcome it? Why does speech therapy not help me? Is there a cure for stuttering? Are there any alternative forms of stuttering therapy to the normal traditional and useless speech therapy? These were the types of questions that I used to ask my parents when I was a child. I am now thirty-four years of age and am happy to report that I managed to overcome my own stutter twelve years ago. I am now able to speak without the constant fear of stuttering and boy does that feel good. I still remember the anguish of stuttering and am still quite frustrated at the lack of improvement that I had during fourteen years of attending speech therapy.

It was quite difficult being a child who had a stuttering problem. I wanted to be liked in the same way that I am sure most other children do but also loved to spend time on my own. I could quite easily have become a hermit and a happy hermit at that. I am not person who required other people to bounce ideas off or to keep me entertained. I learned over the years that there are few people who you can trust and even people who I would class as my best friends would be more than willing to stab me in the back if they had something to gain from it.

I could of course trust myself and also had the comfort of knowing that I did not stutter in my own company. This led me to becoming quite inward and very comfortable within my own company. I did not feel lonely at all.

The fact that I was able to converse with myself free from stuttering gave me hope that one day I would be able to cure my stutter.

After living through my whole childhood and teenage years having to cope with a stutter I finally was able to eradicate the stutter at the age of twenty-two.

Steve Hill is a webmaster from Birmingham, he has interests in a number of websites including:

stuttering information, therapy for stuttering and alternative therapy

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Hill

What types of speech pathology service are available in the UK? Do the speech therapy treatments differ from the ones that are available in other countries in the world? Speech pathology for stuttering has come along way in the last ten years and in this article I will be discussing the forms of therapy that are now available to people who stutter in the United Kingdom and the rest of the world.

Are you aware of just how many people in the UK have a stuttering problem? Do you know somebody who has a stutter or as some people call it a stammer? Do you have a stutter or stammer? Well the latest studies have reported that around one in every hundred people do in fact stutter, this is a huge number and stuttering is therefore much more widespread than the so called experts had thought in the past.

So what are the treatments for stuttering? For many a year the only form of treatment for stammering or stuttering was via a local speech therapy unit, these were normally located within a hospital. So why did this approach not work or satisfy the people who had a stutter? Quite simply, because the treatments that are offered through traditional speech therapists do not work, they do not help the person to achieve fluency.

I am not totally against speech therapy, I am sure that the speech therapists help many people each and every day. I can only go by my own experiences and of the people that I have spoken with, I personally attended speech therapy for fully fourteen years and was still stuttering at the end of this period, in fact the problem had become even more severe.

There are now many more stuttering therapy options available to people. These include attending one-to-one and group speech courses, some of which are run by people who have managed to overcome their own stutter. There are also self-help alternatives for people who feel that they do not have the confidence to attend any form of speech course.

The internet has meant that the types of therapy for stuttering have become universal with people from each country able to search on the major search engines, such as Google, for the latest stuttering treatments.

Steve Hill is a webmaster from Birmingham, he has interests in a number of websites including: stuttering, stuttering information and treatments for stuttering

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Hill

Help Your Child Communicate by Teaching Him Simple Signs at an Early Age

To provide a program of total communication for young children, sign language is often used in conjunction with traditional speech therapy. Babies can actually manipulate their hands and fingers way before they can manipulate their oral structures to form words. For this reason, babies who are having difficulties developing words can begin to communicate using basic signs. The process of watching an adults hand movements in this way develop listening skills and visual skills - both of which are important in the development of spoken language.

Signing helps a young child learn a word’s meaning and how to communicate if effectively. Many children who begin to communicate by signing soon learn to say the corresponding words. American Sign Language - ASL - is what is typically used with young children who are just beginning to develop communication skills. If your little one is having trouble communicating using words and is getting frustrated because he is not understood, try showing him some signs. Signing Time is an excellent program you can use at home. There are books and dvds you and your baby will love! Through interactive songs and teaching segments children of all ages are encouraged to play, sing and sign along while they learn basic ASL vocabulary and simple ASL baby sign.

The first thing you’ll want to do is come up with a list of vocabulary words that are meaningful and useful for your child’s environment. This list may include such words as “eat”, “drink”,”go”, “more”, “all done”, “milk”, “sleep”, “mommy”, “daddy”. The next thing you need to do is to teach these to your child. Show him the sign while you say the word and do this over and over in as many contexts as you can. To teach your child the word and sign for “cat”, use the sign and say the word each and every time your child sees a cat, points to a cat in a book or even hears a cat meow! You may even need to help him make the appropriate hand movements at first.

Signing can give your child a way to communicate that he was otherwise without. His frustration will be less if he has a way to communicate that he is thirsty instead of just getting cranky and you misreading what he really needs. As a result of being able to communicate, social behavior will often improve in a child who has already become frustrated with the inability to communicate.

Tamra Cantar is a Speech-Language Pathologist and has a website dedicated to providing the visitor with useful information and resources for parents of kids with possible communication difficulties. Visit SpeechTherapyWeb for more information on speech/language development and therapy tips and ideas.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tamra_Cantar