If you suffer from the speech impediment known as stuttering, you are not alone. Latest figures suggest that around one percent of the population of England has a stutter or stammer and that the majority of these people are male. In this article I write about the latest stuttering treatments that are available.

I am somebody who had a stutter which originated when I was four years of age. It was to continue to ruin my life for the next eighteen years and had a damaging affect on my self-confidence and self-esteem. I had major problems saying certain words beginning with certain letters and was constantly trying to avoid these type of words.

This is not always easy to do however and I will never forget one particular English lesson when I was around fourteen years of age. I was involved in a class quiz in which we all had to answer simple general knowledge questions. It was a quick fire quiz and as the teacher went around asking each pupil a question in turn, I became more and more nervous. Finally it was my go and I was asked to answer which city was the capital of France. I knew the answer but the demons in my head advised me not to give the answer, as they reminded me that I was unable to say words beginning with p. I was not sure what to do as I could not exactly substitute the word Paris to Lyon. I would do anything to avoid stuttering and stated that I did not know the answer. This was not good as everyone then believed that not only did I have a speech impediment, but that I was also rather stupid.

Ten years ago at the age of twenty-two, I am happy to report that I managed to overcome my own stutter. This was after a year long program of self-help stuttering therapy. This included long periods of observing how good fluent people were talking compared to me and also be reading many self-help type books. These books included areas such as mind over matter, success and positive thinking and were a huge help in improving my whole life.

There are many types of stuttering treatments now available, certainly a lot more than when I had a stutter. There is the normal and traditional speech therapy route. This is where most people start and this type of treatment is of use, however most speech therapists do not believe that you can overcome a stutter, this for me says it all. My answer to them is, have you ever heard of Bruce Willis? I attended speech therapy, however I must admit I did not go to the sessions with the right attitude. I did not believe that they could help me and that their methods of advising me to speak slower and to breathe deeply were floored, as this was not how my friends were talking. I also did not think that they could ever fully understand what I was going through as they have never had a stuttering problem themselves.

The latest stuttering treatments include one-to-one speech courses, group speech courses, self-help ebooks and also self-help dvds. In my opinion the one-to-one speech courses are currently the best option to take and will give you the best chance of attaining fluency. I do understand though that the self-help options can be very appealing to a lot of people, firstly because of the affordability factor and also because of the obvious fact that a lot of people who stutter do not have the confidence to attend a speech course.

More and more people are seeking help to eradicate their stutter and no longer accept second best in their lives.

Good luck in your quest to achieve your goal of fluent speech.

Steve Hill

Stephen Hill runs The How To Stop Stammering Centre In England. He offers stuttering therapy courses to help people who stutter to achieve fluency. Stuttering is also known in some countries as stammering.