Stammering workshop: 7-8th March

Samagra Ashram is organising a two day (Sat, Sun- 7-8th March) self help workshop for people who stammer (PWS). Anyone older than 14 is welcome. Girls are especially encouraged to participate. The focus will be on teaching and practising most useful techniques to help 'forward moving' speech and better communication; not just speech Motor skills but cognitive and affective skills will also be reviewed and discussed. Some instructions on breathing and meditation will also be provided. Methodology will be participatory and experiential. Small group activities and one on one sessions will be used. Post workshop support will be offered through emails and phone. Useful literature will also be provided.

Language of instruction will be English or Hindi, depending on the needs of the participants. Though every participant is expected to contribute to the process of learning, sessions will be facilitated by Vijay, a SLP with considerable experience and Sachin, a pws, and TISA coordinator.

Time: 9 am to 5.30 pm on 7-8th March at Samagra Ashram, near Summerfield School, Herbertpur, Dehradun. Herbertpur is 35 km from Dehradun on Paonta sahib road.

Fee: Essentially the workshop is free; Just for the renting of hall etc., there is a registration fee of Rs 100 on day 1 (7th March) only. For board and lodge, arrangement will be made at a nearby hotel, within a range of Rs 150 to 300 per day per person. Participant from nearby cities need not stay at Herbertpur, unless they want to, for convenience.
Further inquiries: satksri(at)rediffmail.com, satksri(at)gmail.com; 9412058272, 09368127778

Chennai TISA Meetings

The next Chennai chapter meeting will be held on 1st March at YWCA international guest house mini conference hall at # 1086, Ponnamalli High road (near Dinathanthi office & close to Egmore Rly station) from 4 PM to 7 PM.
As already informed, the weekly meetings will be held upto the end of March month only. It will be monthly meetings only from April onwards.
Hence, make use of this opportunity.

Regards,
V. Manimaran
Mobile: 098842 89989

News from Chennai

Dear Friends,
The Chennai chapter meeting on 22.2.09 were attended by 15 PWS. This time every one was asked to sing a song. All the PWS sang a song and to the surprise of every one, no one stammered. This was to create a good atmosphere in the beginning of the meeting and everybody liked it. Hence we decided to make it a regular feature in all the coming  meetings to begin with a song. This way, shame of every one reduced to great extent.

Then, every one asked to speak about a topic of their own choice except stammering. They also advised to involve in the subject while speaking rather than concentrating on speaking without stammering. Most of them spoken well. They were suggested to pause a few seconds between phrases when speaking next week.

A 10 year old boy was also attended along with his parent. A few techniques like slow reading & and speaking slowly were taught to him. The boy is able to catch all the points and assured to follow the same.

The Chennai chapter inaugural meet on 24.2.09 was telecast in a Tamil channel (Tamilian TV) on 22nd night from 11 PM to 11.30 PM. The interviews of Mr.Sivasubramanian, Mr.Karunyamurthy, a parent of one girl PWS and myself shown in the programme.The entire short film screened on that day was also shown. It will help to create awerness among public. A small step forward for our TISA movement.

Contributed by Mr Manimaran

Delhi 21st Feb Meet Report

Hi,

This Saturday the Delhi Group met at it's usual location - Central Park, Connaught Place, at the usual time - 2:00 PM. The first thought I had in my mind was that we will have to find another place for our meetings soon. Summer has already set-in and it was uncomfortably hot. Very soon it'll become unbearable, we gotta find another place and gotta find it fast.

Meeting started with three participants - yours truly, Dr. Kshitij and Dr. Tarun. I've already introduced Kshitij to you, Tarun is pursuing his MBBS from AIIMS and is preparing for PG. We introduced each other and discussed Manimaran's mail on slowing-down. Tarun was very impressed with it and convinced me to follow it :-)

Tarun had some important work and left early. Then I received a call from Jyoti's mother, Jyoti was also coming with her and Mausi. They reached central park by 3:15, and we had a surprise - Sikandar also dropped in. So now we had 6 people - 4 stutterers and 2 non-stutters (notice, I didn't say normal ;-).

We began our usual trick of introducing ourselves, discussing various practices/therapies we've had etc. Jyoti's mausi showed a keen interest and participated actively in the conversation. The meeting went quite long, till 5:15 PM.

I reached home at 6:30 PM and wifey scolded me. Guys, you owe me a treat ;-)

Cheers

Nitin

Gabbar, Jai and Biru in Herbertpur

This Sunday, four of us were there in Samagra: Anant, Parmanand, Anil and self (Board exams are ahead so other students could not come). We practiced bouncing and increased the speed as we went. Anant had seen Sholay, the famous movie, recently. So we practiced story telling and gradually introduced various communication 'stressors'; it went something like this:

B-b-b-biru and G-g-g-abbar w-w-w-w-ere f-f-f-f-friends.
No- no, Th-th-th-they w-w-w-w-ere e-e-e-e-enemies.
Yes, s-s-s-s-s-sorry, J-j-j-j-jai and B-b-b-b-b-biru were f-f-f-f-friends.
Th-th-th-thakur calls them to c-c-c-c-catch G-g-g-g-gabbar
No, No f-f-f-first Gabbar c-c-c-cuts thakur's ha-ha-ha-hands.
O ye-ye-yes. First Gabbar e-e-e-escapes from j-j-j-jail.
And B-b-b-biru c-c-c-catches hi-hi-hi-him
No-no. It w-w-w-was th-th-th-thakur who caught h-h-h=him.
Ok. so Gabbar is very a-a-a-a-angry. H-h-h-he cuts Jai's hands.
No,no. He c-c-c-cuts Thakur's hands.
So on and so forth..

The idea here was to bounce rapidly (so that we dont stop ourselves from stammering overtly and develop a better control over our speech mechanism) and to cope with interruptions from others. PWS cope poorly with interruptions. Either they give up talking or get very irritated in such situations. Reason is- 99% of their speech problem is in the beginning. Once they start, they want to finish what they have got to say. When some one interrupts, asks a question or 'butts in'- thay have to stop and start all over again. The above game was to practice this- accepting the interruption calmly and then starting all over again- with a smile. Yes, we had a lot of fun. We carried the story even beyond the normal end..

Mumbai meets

Mumbai Chapter is conducting its fourth meeting on 22 Feb. Kindly find the details below,

Date:22 Feb 2009
Time:9:30 a.m.
Day:Sunday
Venue:Newly Renovated Parks,
Near Chaityaboomi,
Shivaji Park,Dadar(W).

Note:Kindly be on time as park closes at 11:00 a.m.

--
Thanks & Regards,
Ajit Potdar

Role of drugs?

Can drugs help stuttering? Reda this interesting post:
http://stutterstories.blogspot.com/2009/01/reasons-i-stopped-taking.html
I have tried anti-anxiety drugs- like Alprax (alprazolam). Yes, they reduce the anxiety. Make you feel as if nothing matters. But they also reduce your initiative. Dulls you. So, if the stress is too much, a small dose occasionally might help. But, it does not offer long term help for stammering.

My experiences with DAF (Delayed Auditory Feedback)

Hi,

About a couple of years ago, I decided to try DAF, and see whether it really helps. Now the Speecheasy device is really expensive (about USD 5000), so I thought of an alternative - to go for Windows Mobile version of DAF software, and use a bluetooth head-set with my mobile.

I downloaded the software from www.artefactsoft.com; they let you download it for 7 days' evaluation period. I installed the software on my Palm Treo 750; and set the speech delay as 100 milliseconds.

And it worked like a charm in getting rid of my blocks; they were all but gone. But I hit upon an even bigger problem - repetitions. The sound of what I spoke came to my ears with a slight delay, and it was so confusing, I was not able to understand whether I have said certain thing or going to say it. I repeated words and sounds pathetically, and my speech became almost illegible.

I tried it for 3 days, but then it became so much pain, I had to get rid of it.

If anybody else wants to try it, mail me at n.tomer@gmail.com; I'll be happy to guide you on how to use it.

Cheers

Nitin

Risk of appearing stuttering and foolish

Here is a poem from Janet rand, especially relevant for those PWS who are trying out self therapy:

RISK
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental
To reach out for another is to risk involvement
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self
To place ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk being called naive
To love is to risk not being loved in return
To live is to risk dying
To hope is to risk despair
To try is to risk failure
But risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing and becomes nothing
They must avoid suffering and sorrow but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live
Chained by their certitude they are slaves; they have forfeited their freedom
Only a person who risks is truly free

(Janet Rand)

Hypnosis and stammering

We have been hearing a lot about hypnotism at our Chennai chapter. No single cause has been identified for stammering and therefore anything and everything can help to some extent for a short while, especially if you believe it is going to help. 

Example: A vitamin tablet can lower your headache if it is given by a doctor you trust. A kind of “placebo” effect. Some of these placebo effects might be good and others might be useless in the long run, especially if you are paying lot of money or investing lot of time to buy and use it.

We have done a rapid review and here is what we have discovered about Hypnotism and its role in stammering, two quotes from two interviews:

"Hypnosis is not a cure for stammering. While hypnotherapy can help with anxiety, it is one tool of many," she said (Judith Patel, a qualified hypnotherapist and specialist speech therapist in stammering). (source: The British Stammering Association supports Gareth in finding lasting speech success)

How much time and commitment is involved?

RG: One year, at first every week, then less often. In my experience, deep relaxation, hypnosis, meditation and others all take place in an altered state of awareness. It is what you do in that altered state that is the important thing. (Rita Greer is an experienced speech language therapist and hypnotherapist) (source: Hypnosis or hip gnosis?)

There are many more articles referring to hypnosis, whcih can be found by doing a search at this at this page: Search

Over all, TISA thinks that hypnosis alone can not help much in an established case of stammering. Secondly, meditation, positive thinking, visualization etc. (other ways of dealing with anxiety) might be equally or more helpful and for FREE.

Finally, self acceptance offers considerable long term help, compared to any short term gain in 'fluency' by any technique. Interacting with other PWS is the way for developing this self acceptance, TISA initiative is entirely based on this concept. Please help us move in that direction, by sharing and listening to others.

Chennai meetings

Chennai chapter has been organising regular meetings every Sunday at YWCA. Here is a brief report for the last meeting from Mr Manimaran:
The Chennai meeting on 15.2.2009 went on well. 15 pws attended. We focused
more on attitude and feelings towards stammering. Mr. Sivasubramanian has given a
good input on positive thinking and motivated the pws. Some of the ideas shared, have been uploaded in the file section of IPWS yahoo group.

Many Faces

Stammering has many faces. I met some of these in a recent meeting - and discovered that I had been through most of these phases in the evolution of a problem which essentially is based on perception, reaction and anticipation. For example there was X from Gwalior, in his thirties. Fluent -but too intense. His adjectives, metaphors and body language- were out to impress the world in a cold blooded fashion. If he wanted to say- food is good, he would rather say: The food is terrific, simply a-amazing- never h-had anything like this.

Similarly, if he had to denounce anything, simple expression of disapproval was not enough! There was considerable emotion in his speech and body language. In fact, his entire energy made some of us uncomfortable. He is a ‘recovered’ PWS and is bent upon proving this fact to every audience he can lay his hands on.. I am not a shrink, but I guess sitting quiet (or meditation) will certainly help him- and his communication style. We all know, this great and deep urge to communicate- which, when frustrated for a long time, becomes an irrepressible drive.. But man must be in control of all drives, including this.. in order to communicate better!

Then, there was Y from Delhi: Like a child with great wonder in his eyes. He had never met another PWS. He couldn’t believe that there were madcaps on this planet, who stammered and talked about st-st-stammering in a large group. What is this madness? His mind kept asking again and again. There was this young girl too, form Ghaziabad, who wondered how could people turn their most disliked quality into something like an asset, to talk about ad-infinitum! They also had a sense of regret: I wish, I had known this years ago! Yes, we repress our thoughts about our stammering, convinced that there is no help. But one day, when you find that the help is there, many years have passed and you do regret that fact.

Then, there was Z from Gurgaon, fluent but talking as if he were walking on a parapet 100 feet above the ground. We all know that feeling- Not stammering but constantly anticipating doom (stutter). In our fear, we keep adding one fluent word after another- as if we are postponing that inevitable moment of a bad bad block! Neither Z not his audience was truly relaxed. In retrospect, it would have been so much better both for Z and his audience, had he stammered a little!

Then, there was K from Kalka: he too is OK but he cannot understand why we are so het up about stammering. Is stammering an issue? Certainly not. He conquered it years ago. But since then, he is also trying to forget it (a paradox). So, he comes as a one man army to demolish this new fashion of starting self help group for stammering. Deep down, he knows the demon because he has wrestled with it himslef. But in public, he must trivialize the whole issue.

Then, there is this young man from Gorakhpur: he is not worried so much by his daily misery of communication, finding friends, jobs etc. He is more pained by his mother and father's sorrow on his account; their reaction to his problems. The harder he tries to assuage their feelings, the more he tenses up- the more he stammers- and the worse he feels about everything. Life seems so unfair, so hard. He wonders if this roomful of PWS can truly solve his problem..Can they?

Then, there was P from Chakrata: No he does not stammer. He doesn’t understand it. But he does know discrimination. Years ago in school, whenever he would sit at the dining table, other kids would melt away. Why? Because, his father worked as a peon in the same school. Once, as a child, he even told his father- why dont you go and find work somewhere else? He remembers his father’s weak smile with pain now. He is doing a study on communication disorders, so he attended this stammering meet.

There were a couple of Stuttering consultants also! After stuttering for years, they get a chakra awakening and then they write a couple of books- on the back of which they self-advertise their stammering, without any compunction. Over night they set themselves up as professional stutterers! I am told that they are in great demand in International conferences!

(This is supposed to be a funny piece. No offense meant to sachin and others!)

iPhone helps in stuttering therapy

My birthday is approaching (01st March) and I have been thinking of gifting myself an iPhone. But I wasn't able to comprehend how I will justify spending 25K on something essentially non-essential in these recessionary times to my wife.

Well it looks like there is one justifiable reason :-)

Scientists at Hollins Communications Research Institute (HCRI - www.stuttering.org), a leading center for stuttering research and treatment innovation, have just completed successful trials using Apple's iPhone as a stuttering therapy tool to enhance the transfer of new fluency skills from the clinical setting into real-life situations.

The iPhone device was programmed at HCRI with a sophisticated voice monitoring system that evaluates and scores speech behaviors taught during stuttering therapy. When clients use the device during training in outside situations, such as in a shopping mall, restaurant or business setting, fluency measurements for each utterance are displayed on the iPhone screen. Having this data immediately available to stuttering therapy program participants makes speech practice more effective and helps improve the speed with which fluency results are achieved.

Complete Article - Apple's iPhone Finds New Use in Treating Stuttering

Mumbai Meet

Ajit from Mumbai wants to thank members for making the Mumbai Chapters 3rd meeting a success. Mumbai Chapter wants to thank Dr. Akash Acharya for sharing his time with us. It was a very fruitful meeting in many ways for every body. New topics were discussed. Old topics were rediscovered. Results or advantage of these kinds of meeting to oneself cannot be measured in metrics but somewhere deep inside they do help you to understand oneself.

RAJ SAMAL also wrote:
Thnx friends ,
It was very nice to meet you all on last day , came to know many things which will help me a lot to improve my stammering.
Hope to meet you very soon...

TISA thanks Dr Akaash and all other participants..

I'm brave enough..

Here is a beautiful poem by Khuzema, from chennai...

I'm brave enough

Tides of evil are strong, electric and high,
But I have decided to swim against the tide.
Woes and worries are the ingredients of my life,
But I have decided to take them in my stride.

What if, if I'm in the middle of the night
And clouds prevent the stars to shine.
I know, the eclipse of any kind is impermanent
The sun of prosperity surely will shine.

Never mind if I'm lost in the woods
And the ghost of failures haunts me from behind.
I believe that the hard work never go unrequited
Path of the glory, my heart surely will find.

Chain of mountains is still ahead of me to cross
And the liabilities are multiplying my load
But God has always tested who are brave
And I'm brave enough to be rewarded by my Lord.

by- KhuzemaY.Siamwala (Copyrighted)

Delhi rocks!

Reporter Nitin is here with the weekly installment of Delhi
Meet happenings :

As I've posted earlier, last week we had the first TISA meet
in Delhi. 3 of us met and decided to have a weekly meet. For this Saturday's
(31st Jan) meeting, two more PWS too had shown interest. So I was expecting
5 PWS, but as it turned out, 7 PWS attended the meeting.
The PWS were -

1. Kshitij
2. Faiz
3. Sikander
4. Arun
5. Abdullah
6. Zameer
7. Nitin

Kshitij, Sikander and Faiz have attended Dr. Sajeev Adlakha's therapy
together and are friends. Faiz has also attended Partha Bagchi's therapy in
Bangalore. Following is the chronological list of events at the meeting.

1. We introduced each other, there was playful banter going on and it
was fun.
2. Kshitij, Sikander, Faiz and me shared our therapy experience and
the role of a therapist in a therapy.
3. All of agreed that a self-help group is very important in
overcoming therapy as it provides an avenue to the members to shed their
inhibitions and speak up.
4. Faiz suggested that all of us speak for 3-4 minutes in turn, and
everybody ask questions. We had to use our therapy techniques and maintain
eye-contact. This was indeed a very good exercise and we enjoyed it.
5. We decided to meet every Saturday, at the same time (02:00 PM) and
at the same venue (Central Park, Connaught Place).

Overall it was an excellent experience and I am already looking for the next
week. Unfortunately I'll be travelling on next week-end, and won't be able
to join them, but the meet will surely take place.

Cheers
Nitin

PS: Great guys! A little humor takes us a long way. So keep up your banter- your smile, your grit and your spirit of keeping at it.. sachin