How do we treat stuttering?

Recommended training consists of three successive stages of  total duration (for adults and children of 9 years and upward) up to 1,5 hours.  

At the first stage of training a patient takes the microphone in hands, puts on the headphones, and begins  reading the text, being guided by the rate, imposed by the program, trying "to  adjust oneself" to  the own voice, sounding in the headphones with little delay. Practically in 99 % of cases it is possible to achieve necessary results: stable keeping of the slowed down speech rate, absence of stuttering and occurrence of noticeable load on respiratory system. Activation of  respiratory center, along with decrease in speech rate also inhibits the speech center, resulting in   stabilization of work of "speech circle”. 

In rare instances there were no  specified displays  - patients read, not changing the initial speech rate, with the same quantity of mistakes and stumblings, and also with the initial skills of breath. The fact was, that some people had  the bone conductivity of  sound (i.e. our own voice, which we hear with tightly clamped ears), which value  was  higher, than  of air conduction. Thus the voice, sounding through  the bone canal, appears for the given patient louder, in comparison with the lagging  voice in the headphones, and that makes to perceive the latter only as "echo" and does not allow the patient to  adjust on it. The solution of this problem can be found in increase in loudness of the sound in the headphones. It leads to gradual reorganization of auditory perception of the patient from the  bone into the air canal of sound conductivity  and to obtaining of expected results.  

Further  work over the  theme  led us to one more very interesting "salt". Having studied the works of the American institute of Monroe, connected with the  influence of acoustic signals on brain biorhythms, the proprietary method was  originated, which was called “bisensory effect”. Its essence is  in obtaining of natural antidepressant effect by influence on biorhythms of  brain on-line. The  changed speech, supplied by the program  into the headphones,    is  psychologically perceived  as “volumetric and deep”. Twenty minutes of reading   are enough  to feel an antidepressant, calming influence. This effect can be used not only for treatment of logoneurosis, but also during  the "latent" depression and  chronic fatigue syndrome. 

But reading was not enough. In fact, during  reading  only two of three centers, participating in speech production, work, there is no necessity of connection of the associative center since all words are selected and  all phrases are constructed. In everyday life we have to use all three centers. For this reason the majority of stuttering people note, that in conversation speech disturbances are observed  more often, than during reading aloud. To include all three centers in the restored speech circle the second stage is necessary, where the patient (also in the headphones and into the microphone) retells in his own  words the text, read  at the first stage. Pupils and students, at the same time, can use this computer program for daily preparation of theoretical subjects,  it not only saves time for training with the program, but also considerably improves progress of pupils.

Effectiveness  of the technique at these two stages makes 60-70 %, that exceeds effect of others applied for correction of logoneurosis methods. But in due course   this high percent  ceased to satisfy us. Certainly, it is good to have “the family speech therapist”, but it would be desirable to solve the problem of stuttering more cardinally. Besides we did not accept the result of arrangement of the slowed down artificial speech, deprived of emotional colour. 

Thus the third, basic stage of the program was born, and the first two serve now only as warm-up. The third stage – “development of announcer's abilities” - makes it its aim  not only to learn the patient to speak without stuttering, but also promotes the improvement of speech  quality upscale! Owing to this announcer's module the patient is trained in natural, emotional, expressive speech, bringing it   up to  the level of the professional announcer.