We were 7 people at this meeting, including one undergraduate student from La Salle and a new member, Eric. Welcome to our group Eric!

What do you do when you notice that you stutter more? Sometimes we go back to not talking or to avoiding situations so that our stuttering doesn’t get worse.  For some of us, if we fight it, it gets worse, but if we keep it low, eventually it wears off and we go back to our normal state.  Sometimes doing nothing can be empowering.  It’s not the same as giving up, it is just a way of saying that you recognize what is happening and you are staying in control.

Other times we take time to practice techniques or rehearse what we are going to say.  That is particularly important if you are going to give a presentation.  We read it out loud, we practice what we are going to say until we feel so comfortable with the material that we don’t have to think about it when we actually give the presentation. Rehearsing is a way to remove an element to worry about when there are so many other things at play.  Not having to worry about the content makes it easier to deliver and it helps with fluency.

We discussed a couple of our goals: Increasing eye contact and eliminating fillers.  We don’t like it when others don’t maintain eye contact with us but sometimes we are the first ones to break it. It is important to maintain eye contact to stay self-confident and promote a positive attitude and acceptance.  Fillers such as “Umm”, “like”, etc. help us transition from one word or syllable to another but in fact it takes longer to say something than if we blocked and got over it without using the filler.