Good old mirror practice!

Mr Mani Maran from Chennai very kindly forwarded this interesting post; It is based on the idea, that when we stutter, we are not aware of what we are doing incorrectly. Mirror can give this feedback and help us regain the control..

"Hello Friends,

It's been a while since I have posted. I wanted to share my recent experience of how I am overcoming stuttering. Though reading some books and what not my stuttering vastly improved.

I recently got a new computer that has a video camera so I was making some video's and to send to my Dad to show him how much my stuttering improved. I noticed I never struggled with stuttering at all when I was making the video. I was not even following a script, so I basically started to play around with it and make video's for fun. I typically read once a day out loud and record it on my iphone if nothing else to give me confidence when my confidence is low regarding my talking.

I spent several days trying to figure out why I performed so well on the video. Not that I was not performing well when I was reading to myself. But I noticed that something was different. I soon figured out it was because I was watching my lips move and I was not allowing myself to see myself stutter.

So I decided to try on this on something I have not been overcome regarding the stuttering. The phone. So I bought some small mirrors from my local craft store and called some of my friends and watching my mouth and lips move as I talked and I did not struggle over the phone at all. For me that is a very big deal as if I am going to stutter it is going to be over the phone.

When I watching my mouth and lips move I seem to know what it should look like and how they should move when I say certain words. I don't understand this, but when I don't use the mirror I am much more prone to stutter. I think with this technique I will eventually train myself to speak with 100% fluency.

I am not saying this will work for everyone. Maybe you have to have a certain amount of confidence in your speech already built in for it to work. But it has worked for me and I have been doing it for a week.

Matthew"