Rhythmical Movements – A Stuttering Solution?

Good afternoon everyone,

I hope that you’re having a great start to the weekend!

I’ve had a stutter for as long as I can possibly remember, and it’s pretty safe to say that it has played an enormous role in my life. I’ve found that a lot of stutterers use rhythmical movements to help them monitor & control their speech, which is exactly what we are going to be looking at in today’s blog 🙂

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For the majority of people who stutter, they are taught from a young age to try to manage their speech using rhythm. If you have watched The King’s Speech or Educating Yorkshire, you would have seen that this is commonly done through the use of music.

For me, I typically manage my speech by making regular circular movements with my arms when I talk. I alter the speed in which I move my hands based off of the fluency of my speech, if I find that I have been stuttering a lot over a short timespan, then I’ll typically move my hands and talk slower until I manage to rebuild some more fluency and consistency over my speech.

The thinking behind this is that I am focusing more on the rhythm of my hands, instead of focusing on my speech, which helps me to speak a lot more fluently.

For quite a lot of stutterers, it’s the anticipation or fear that you are going to stutter that ultimately causes you to do so. Through the use of rhythmical movements, you can help distract your mind while maintaining a steady flow for your speech – it’s a win-win if you think about it!

Over the last couple of years, I have learnt so much about stuttering. Whether it’s through research, talking to fellow people with stutters or simply by documenting my journey to speech fluency here on Sweeney’s Blogs, I have come such a long way. My understanding and approach to handle my speech have improved greatly, and this helps me ensure that I am constantly gaining more and more control over my stutter, which is lovely to see.

Sometimes it’s the small things like moving your arms that make the biggest difference, you just never know what can help at the end of the day! It’s little discoveries like this that make the whole process that much more fascinating 🙂

That’s all for today’s blog, what do you think? Would you like to see more stuttering-focused posts on the page? Are there any blogs or topics that you’d like to see me cover?

Be sure to let me know your thoughts to the above questions, either in the comments below or through our Facebook page!

Thanks for reading & I hope you have a lovely day!