In addition, Barbara will be available to work with clinicians looking to expand their expertise in stuttering treatment.

For an appointment, please contact us at barbdahm@gmail.com or by phone, please call us at 201-378-0089.

Barbara will also be giving a workshop at the National Stuttering Association Convention in Cleveland between July 7-11, 2010.  She will be talking about the disparity between research and treatment for stuttering and explaining how this can be overcome. It looks like it will be a great convention. It’s an opportunity for people who stutter and their families to meet and discuss all aspects of stuttering and to have lots of fun with a great group of people.

I was very bothered by this discussion because I believe these opinions reinforce the belief that people who stutter can at best learn to live with stuttering. It is my belief that the truth requires looking at stuttering from a different perspective. It was once true that we did not know exactly how to guide people who stutter develop the ability to speak naturally in all the different situations that they encounter in their lives. Therapy was a trial and error endeavor. Very often clients tried very hard to develop techniques and control their speech, but to no avail. On the other hand, there have always been people, who once stuttered, who no longer stutter. Since we didn’t know how that happened, it was chalked up to “good luck” or perhaps no longer chasing fluency god.

Times have changed. In my work with people who stutter I see on a regular basis that that there is a clear, explainable, and doable process that people who stutter can use that results in naturally fluent speech. It does not require chasing fluency, an activity that does usually result either in stuttering or effortful fluency. It does not require developing speech controls, the antithesis of automatic, normally produced speech. What it does involve is understanding how a person who stutters process speech and what changes need to be made to make speaking a much easier and dependable activity. I am fully part of the group who believes that there is no magic cure for stuttering. However, as a result of practical experience, I know that people of all ages and severities of stuttering are capable adopting and getting used to a process that results in comfortable easily produced fluent speech.

I believe that the stuttering community should welcome the input of people who have overcome stuttering. People who still stutter can learn from them that change is possible. For those who believe that it is not possible for people who stutter to develop a way of speaking fluently, it is time to gain a deeper understanding of stuttering. Instead of sticking to beliefs based on yesterday’s knowledge, they should listen carefully to the positive experiences of people who have overcome stuttering and to all the new research and clinical knowledge about stuttering. The time for negativity has past. The time for being open to a new perspective on stuttering has come.

Determination, resolve, and not a small amount of stubbornness forced me to look out of the box to find the best way to treat my clients who stutter. I never intended to come up with a whole new theory about stuttering and a new treatment approach. However, when I took into consideration all that is known about stuttering, including the thoughts, beliefs, reactions and behaviors of all my clients and the many thousands of people I have met and spoken to in the stuttering community, it begged to happen. It became so clear to me that stuttering is not simply a problem of the rhythm or forward flow of speech. These were just characteristics of the speech produced. I realized that stuttered speech was the product of a malfunctioning interactive system, so I studied this system from all angles both in the clinic and by learning from researchers and experts in all related fields. It all began to make sense. In the clinic I saw an obvious direct relationship between the way the specific production processes functioned and the fluency of speech. The proof that the speech processing perspective is the right perspective is in the results.

I have never touted Dynamic Stuttering Therapy as the magic cure for stuttering. It is just that I have found it to be the most effective therapy approach. I have a number of clients who have contacted me more than a decade after completing therapy. Some of them are in the videos on my website. They have told me that the treatment they received in my clinic changed their lives. Not all the clients that I have treated over the years have reached the same level of success, but, as the program was refined over the years, there are more and more clients who feel this way.

I have gotten used to seeing the astounding changes that so many clients have made, but sometimes, when I look back on videos to they way the client spoke only a month or so earlier, the enormous difference amazes even me. Not only is the person’s speech so much more fluent, there is also a change in the person’s overall demeanor. Their facial expression, posture and body language is more relaxed and natural and they have a new found ability to relate stories, argue, tell jokes and anecdotes, read before an audience and lead prayers. I have heard many a client say that Dynamic Stuttering Therapy is the most logical and effective way to treat stuttering, but I had to smile when a 13 year old client said, “This therapy rocks!”