One of the enigmas about stuttering is that most people who stutter when talking don’t stutter when singing. Actually, it is often thought that no one stutters when they sing, but I have observed a few exceptions. Of the thousands of people who I have either evaluated or treated, a handful have stuttered occasionally when singing, particularly when starting to sing. Nonetheless, stuttering is very rare when singing.
An acceptable theory of stuttering has to account for this phenomenon. Therefore, I am going to explain from the perspective of my theory why people who stutter don’t stutter when they sing and what the difference is between speaking and singing.
When singing, the subconscious intent is to produce a voice that contains a sequence of varied vocal tones. This sequence makes up the melody of the song. The melody of a song is developed in the brain. As this is done, the motor area of the brain sends signals to the muscles of the larynx so that they will vibrate with the right pitch and rhythm. If you want to see this for yourself, sing a song silently. If you become aware of what happens in your throat, you will sense that your vocal folds are prepared to vibrate, even though you want to remain silent. The brain sends these signals automatically whether you are singing silently or aloud. Singing is all about voice and melody. When the song contains lyrics, nothing changes. The speech sounds are formed automatically without any thought or effort. Singing works this way for almost all people.
For the fluent speaker, speaking and singing are created in a similar way from the same exact anatomical structures. The same signals to vibrate the same vocal folds are subconsciously sent from the brain. This creates intonation, the speech equivalent to melody. Intonation becomes speech sounds as the mouth moves automatically. This can happen because fluent speakers are not aware of the words they are saying. For people who stutter speaking and singing are done differently. When speaking, the focus of attention for people who stutter is the words. In one way or another, they are concerned with saying words and “getting them out”. Intonation takes a backseat as the brain tries to control word formation. Subconsciously, the brain is busy sending signals to lips, tongue, jaw, etc. Instead of the mouth automatically shaping the voice (intonation) into speech sounds, the voice becomes a vehicle for pushing out already formed speech sounds and words. For people who stutter the processes of speaking and singing are done very differently. For people who speak fluently, they are almost identical. During Dynamic Stuttering Therapy, clients begin to understand this difference between these 2 ways of speaking and they report a big difference in the ease of speaking when they do it in the way that it is don by normally fluent speakers.
Have you ever wondered why you speak much more fluently when you are talking to yourself or to babies and animals? Aside from making you curious, the inconsistency in your ability to speak in different situations has probably caused a lot of frustration. There you are talking to yourself and having no problem. Then someone walks into the room and oops, the words don’t flow anymore. Talking alone or to pets is just one of the many fluency enhancing conditions that needs to be explained in any adequate theory of stuttering.
The Fourteenth International Stuttering Awareness Day (ISAD), Online Conference, hosted by Judith Kuster, professor emeritus, Minnesota State University, Mankato, Minnesota has begun. This year’s conference, Sharing Stories – Changing Perceptions is freely available live until October 22nd. The conference is linked to the 
“She’s got it, by George, she’s got it!!!” That’s what I said over and over again as I read Speech is a River: My Recovery From Stuttering, by Ruth Mead. This book explains so much about the inner game of speaking from the viewpoint of a person who stuttered and who no longer stutters. With clarity, wit, humor, and a not a small measure of political incorrectness, Mead takes on many of the false beliefs that perpetuate and exacerbate stuttering.
Now the question is can this hypothesis be validated through research? Not being a researcher myself, I was very excited to attend a lecture at the NSA Applied Research Symposium by 
Earlier this month I attended the Applied Research Symposium: Mapping a Plan for the Future, sponsored by the National Stuttering Association. The purpose of this seminar was not only to advance our understanding of stuttering but also to see how we can apply the findings to treatment for people who stutter. I was happy to have the chance to participate in a dialogue with researchers in the field. It was also very important for me to see if their findings fit into the Dahm Theory. The presentations touched on many aspects of stuttering, including the psychological processes of non-linguistic and language processing, and error-monitoring and motor control. I found it very encouraging that these topics touched upon the factors that I discuss in my model.
If my theory of stuttering is valid, it must be able to explain the variable nature of stuttering. There are some people who stutter in almost all conversations, but this rare, and even these people do not stutter on every word. Most people have times, or situations during which they report that they don’t stutter. Sometimes people can predict when they will stutter, but sometimes it just seems to happen without any warning.
Understanding stuttering would be much easier if we knew what we don’t know. We think in a certain way, so we are not aware of the possibility of thinking differently. This seems confusing, but what is very clear is that by thinking the same way we thought before, keeps us in a state of confusion.
Last week I experienced a first for me in the realm of technology. I had been invited to give my first 3-hour online seminar to the Speech Clinicians attending the Mississippi Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention. The seminar “Treating Stuttering With Confidence” was held last week.
