Stuttering can be treated by early intervention
BMJ 2005; 331 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.331.7518.0 (Published 22 September 2005) Cite this as: BMJ 2005;331:0All rapid responses
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Forms of stuttering:
1) Clonic stuttering, characterized by repetitions of syllables or words.
2) Tonic stuttering, characterized by blockage and disruptions of speech.
3) Mixed, containing elements of tonic and clonic stuttering.
4) 'Normal stuttering', presenting at ages of 3-4 years, is due to discrepancies between thinking and speaking. The child at this age thinks more than that it is able to express. He/she does not yet possess the appropriate vocabulary to express all of his thoughts.
This disorder disappears gradually in a few months, if the child does not get psychologically pressured from its parents. In such cases, simple parental counseling is enough.
Stammering has often psychogenic causes, but results in deficient breathing.
Whoever lacks air, has fear (angst).
Whoever has fear (angst), stutters.
Proper functioning of breathing is essential for proper phonation and articulation.
Disordered breathing leads to other symptoms: rapid breathing induces intense anxiety states (angst), with activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, hand sweating, facial flushing, shoulder tension, deficient duration in learning, emotional disorders.
For inducing proper breathing, we need flexibilisation revitalization and activation of the diaphragm, relaxation and tranquility.
To the child, soul-body-breathing-articulating organ, are all interrelated and interdependent. For this, stuttering should be treated holistically.
High breathing (hochatmung) is respiratory tension, with unilateral predominance of thoracic breathing, lifting of the shoulders, extreme burden of the neck muscles, ventilation of only a small portion of the lungs, creation of stretches, and is observed in almost every stutterer. [Becker and Sovak, Lehrbuch der Logopaedie, 1979 edition, page 269]
These accumulated tensions are fixed, creating contractions of the vocal and articulatory organs.
Primarily, we need to release methodically tension/stretches/tightness/contractions that have been established in stutterers, and induce training in relaxation.
This occurs with special pulsations, vibrations (resonanz), oscillations, that permeate the human body, and contain healing powers.
Relaxation occurs by slowly and periodically pulling and stretching isolated muscle groups by applying opposing forces, until harmony is brought. (Heraclitus therapeutic dipole)
The disorder of stuttering can not be addressed piecemeal, with only verbal exercises. In order to recuperate completely and permanently the stutterer, it is necessary to lay the foundations for the extinction and treatment of the causes and not just the symptoms of stuttering.
There should be a therapeutic approach for the entire body of the patient, not only for the articulating organs.
Proper, relaxed, diaphragmatic breathing is a prerequisite for the recovery of stuttering.
These myokinetic exercises are not imposed in military style, instead the therapist guides the patient with gentle and calm voice.
The best age for early restoration of stuttering is between 5-7 years, before the disorder gets established and consolidated.
At such a young age, the child has not yet realized he/she is a stammerer. Upon entering school, the child realizes that he/she speaks differently from other classmates, some of whom might also tease him.
At school, the child makes desperate efforts to improve, pressing itself even more, increasing the tension of the whole body, and exacerbating contractions in phonetic-articulating organs.
The situation gets worse, fear of speech grows, the child ends up completely avoiding speech or certain words.
Pioneering speech therapist Maria Summer would organize groups of stutterers, of up to 12 people, consisting of young children or adults, and engage in intensive group therapy of a few weeks.
She believed that the team creates additional potential, and mutual emotional support between stutterers.
These holistic therapy sessions in no way should remind school. Children should rather perceive them as games.
All exercises designed for flexibilisation, revitalization and activation of the diaphragm for inducing proper ventilation must be non-conscious to the child and the adult who stutters.
This because breathing process can not be affected positively by the child’s will. When exercises are performed consciously, after willful overexertion, it leads to stronger tensions of the entire body, extra contractions of the vocal and articulatory organs, additional ventilating tension.
During therapy sessions, absolute silence prevails and the exercises are repeated silently, like a ritual, even for hours.
Intermediate necessary rest breaks are included, for relaxation and recovery.
Without the consolidating break, all exercises are useless.
Only in advanced sessions, near the end of the treatment cycle, the psychologist/speech therapist/specialist trainer proceeds in rhythmic-verbal exercises.
In each session, the therapist politely and continually corrects posture, the position of the spine, breathing, tension at the shoulders, the movement of the lips, chin, etc., because the old strong clichés have become a habit.
Furthermore, the therapist must always remain calm, without any stress, with proper diaphragmatic breathing, correct spinal posture, in order to have a positive impact on the child.
Proper execution of these exercises is more important than quantity. Proper implementation is difficult to describe and must be experienced by each therapist in practical training sessions.
When psychological problems are detected, psychotherapy is used to improve the child’s self-esteem.
This holistic method, developed and perfected by Maria Summer in Rankweil Austria, many decades ago, is used for quick and effective treatment of disorders of speech, attention, breathing and learning, even in adults.
Only if the child has had meningitis or encephalitis in the past, leaving residual permanent neurological damage, attested in EEG, we fail to provide lasting recuperation of stuttering, after therapy sessions.
References
1) Maria Summer, Heilpeadagogin-Logopaede, gruenderin der Ganzheitlich Fundierten Logopädie, Sprachheilstaete und Ateminstitut in Rankweil, Austria. Fortbildungsseminare.
2) Klaus Peter Becker und Milos Sovak, Lehrbuch der Logopädie, Verlagsgruppe Athenäum, Hain scriptor Hanstein, 1979.
3) E.M. Pfau und H.G Streubel, Die Behandlung der gestoerten Sprechstimme. Stimmfunktionstherapie, Veb Georg Thieme Verlag, Leipzig, 1982.
4) Maria Montessori, The receptive mind, Glaros, Athens, 1980.
5) Goblenzer H. und Muhar, Atem und Stimme, Österreichischer Bundesverlag Fuer Unterricht Wissenschaft und Kunst, Wien, 1976.
6) Leo Kofler, Die Kunst des Atmens, Schaff Horst und Hedwig Andersen.
7) E.J. Kiphard, Erziehung durch Bewegung Verlag duerse Buchhandlung, Bonn, 1977.
8) E.J. Kiphard, Motopaedagogik, Modernes lernen, Dortmund, 1979.
9) Ditrich Eggert, Psychomotorisches Training, Beltz Praxis, 1979.
Competing interests: Chasapis Athanasios studied, for many years, at the speech therapist Center and Institute of breathing run by Mrs. Maria Summer, and participated in many seminars for Advanced Speech Therapy abroad. He then transferred and extensively used these practices of the holistic method (speech-voice-breathing-attention-learning disorders-etc.) in his speech therapy Practice in Greece, from 1982 until now. He is the author of a forthcoming book in German, which describes extensively the pioneering holistic method of Mrs. Maria Summer, who died in 2007, without leaving a textbook behind.
Re: Stuttering can be treated by early intervention
First phase
1) Leaps with two feet, jumps on one leg, body balance on one leg, lift-drop shoulder, candle pose[1], dragging the lumbar spine against a door or a wall (up and down, bending knees until heels stand up, maintaining a 30-degree angle of the body forward, arms extended forward, legs apart).
2) Dragging the entire body, supine position, on a wooden floor, with arms at the side, using only legs, from one end of the room to the other, moving the body sideways to the left and then to the right, simulating the movement of the snake on the desert sand.
3) Rolling the body, on a wooden floor, with hands uplifted, from one end of the room to the other.
4) Riding without a horse, with arms extended forward, legs apart, without shoes, on a wooden floor, bending knees until heels stand up, rhythmically while reciting a ditty "hop hop", for many repetitions.
In between exercises, breaks of 3-4 minutes in the posture of complete relaxation-peace are made, on the floor, on a hard wooden surface, on a slim orthopaedic mattress, face down, without a cushion, chin to chest, cheek leaning down, arms close to the trunk, with palms facing upward, legs wide open.
At this posture of complete relaxation-peace, we observe the child's breathing.
All this is done in a well ventilated room, with the child wearing overalls and not clothes that restrict its movements.
The therapist creates vibrations with his fingers, lateral to the spine, starting from the lumbar spine, up to the cervical spine.
Second phase
5) Der IGEL: From the lotus position [2] or if not possible, due to lack of elasticity, from the kneeling posture, with hands kept loosely on knees, thumb and forefinger forming an O, straight spine, the command is given to drop and roll forward and inward.
Dropping and rolling forward and inward is performed very slowly, until the head reaches the floor between the knees, arms aside, palms open upward. [3]
Patients remain for a few seconds with the forehead touching the floor.
Up to here, is the first half of the exercise. After the next command for reset-recovery, from the therapist, the stutterer retracts and stretches primarily the lumbar spine of the column and slowly arrives to raise the head.
During early sessions, exercise IGEL, is repeated many times, for hours, in absolute silence, as if in a ritual.
There may be breaks in between, at the posture of complete relaxation-peace.
In advanced sessions, exercise IGEL, is accompanied by the hum mmmmmmmmoooooooo during the first half.
The patient begins the hum at the moment the chin reaches the sternum and ends it when the forehead touches the floor.
In more advanced sessions, exercise IGEL, is accompanied, during the first half, by a stanza from Goethe or from Homer, dragging singing and prolonging the words, imitating the therapist.
“...when it went daaaark, we aaaaall slept by the riiiiveeeer...”
Between sessions, the stutterer can repeat the exercises of the first and second phase, at home, for hours, in order to improve faster and better.
Third phase
6) Only wearing socks, the stutterer walks and balances on a wooden beam touching the floor, width 5-6 cm, and later on another wooden beam, which does not touch the ground, but lies between two fixed points a few cm above the floor, width 3.5 cm.
With hands in extent, the patient attempts steps forward and backward, on the first and later on the second wooden beam, breathing calmly and diaphragmatically.
In advanced sessions, the patient combines every step forward or backward with one word (days of week, numbers from 0 to 100, etc.), first on one and then on the other wooden beam.
In more advanced sessions, the patient repeats phrases, mimicking the therapist.
7) We ask questions and expect short answers from the stutterer.
8) We ask brief descriptions of illustrated comic stories.
9) In between exercises of the third phase, there exist respiration breaks: keeping the mouth open, after a slow inhalation, a prolonged exhalation follows, liberating enough CO2, every 3 or 4 normal breaths.
This is a conscious breathing exercise, but to the patient it is presented as a break.
We indicate kinesthetically how much airstream must be exhaled directing it to the back of the palm of the child, in order to establish a comparison with their own exhalations.
10) In a standing position with legs apart, flow of speech movement exercises are performed, by saying small phrases while forming with the hand in the air the infinity symbol. The phrase should be completed simultaneously with the completion of the formation of the symbol, without stopping in the middle.
This holistic method, developed and perfected by Maria Summer in Rankweil Austria, many decades ago, is used for quick and effective treatment of disorders of speech, attention, breathing and learning, even in adults. [4]
References
[1] http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/480
[2] http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/2442
[3] http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/475
[4] Maria Summer, Heilpeadagogin-Logopaede, gruenderin der Ganzheitlich Fundierten Logopädie, Sprachheilstaete und Ateminstitut in Rankweil, Austria. Fortbildungsseminare.
Competing interests: Chasapis Athanasios studied, for many years, at the speech therapist Center and Institute of breathing run by Mrs. Maria Summer, and participated in many seminars for Advanced Speech Therapy abroad. He then transferred and extensively used these practices of the holistic method (speech-voice-breathing-attention-learning disorders-etc.) in his speech therapy Practice in Greece, from 1982 until now. He is the author of a forthcoming book in German, which describes extensively the pioneering holistic method of Mrs. Maria Summer, who died in 2007, without leaving a textbook behind.