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From: Russ Hicks
Date: 17 Oct 2007
Time: 14:43:43 -0500
Remote Name: 71.123.180.215
Hi Delilah, Thanks for your kind words. .... You might want to read my ISAD paper last year called "Because I Stutter." See http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/isad9/papers/hicks9.html for this paper. It tells about a lot of really cool things that have happened to me because of my stuttering. I hope you like that paper too! ..... The statement "we stutter when we try not to stutter" is really not mine but either Van Riper's or Wendell Johnson's. But it's absolutely true! The more we desperately try to be fluent and not stutter, the more struggles there are and the more we tend to stutter. To reduce the struggles, we've got to learn to "let go" of our speech and accept what comes out. By "accepting" I am NOT saying "giving up," but rather simply reduce the amount of rigid CONTROL we tend to want to do with our speech. With control comes struggles, and with struggles comes more stuttering - especially secondaries. Even with "good" controls such as slow speech, easy onset, and relaxation - all of which are extremely good standard techniques - if the intent is to eradicate stuttering, the long term effects tend to be highly ineffective. ..... It's as much fun for me - and for lots of other people who stutter - to speak to a class of student speech pathologists as it is valuable for you to hear our real life stories. In your case at WVU, you have one of the finest speech pathology professors on the planet in Dr. Ken St. Louis. (I assume he's your professor.) Ken's a good friend of mine and we're working together so I can come up to WVU to speak to his students hopefully in the next year. I can't wait! ..... I wish you the very best in school and career and in your journey through life. You will have the opportunity to affect the lives of so many people! Thank you for doing that! ..... Russ