Power Stuttering Center Offers Up-to-Date Information About Stuttering
Author: Power Stuttering Center
Published: 2010/12/28
Contents: Synopsis - Introduction - Main - Related Publications
Synopsis: The Kings Speech is a movie many consider to be a front-runner to sweep the Oscars this year.
Introduction
On Release of "The King's Speech" Power Stuttering Center Offers Up-to-Date Information About Stuttering.Main Content
The King's Speech is a movie many consider to be a front-runner to sweep the Oscars this year. Many will see the story of King George VI and his struggle with stammering (or stuttering as we call it here in the US). Among those viewers will be the one percent of the population that has a stuttering problem themselves. They need to know the most current, accurate information about stuttering if they have any hope of getting help.
In the 1930's when this movie takes place, the cause of stuttering was thought to be psychological. Speech therapists did use psychotherapy to remove the "emotional trauma" that they believed produced the stuttering. Scientific research from the 1980's to the present clearly shows that stutterers and normal speakers have definite physical differences in their brains. Stutterers are slower at turning their voice on and off while speaking. Stutterers use different parts of the brain to speak than normal speakers. Stuttering runs in families and can be identified and passed on in the genes.
Now that we know about these physical differences, people who stutter no longer have to feel that they are psychologically damaged. There is also greater hope for recovery by modern treatments that change the way stutterers talk so that they can resolve their physical differences. These new therapies require intensive training to reconstruct speaking, but they are more direct than treatment of an emotional problem.
If you stutter and need a more modern type of therapy, Mark Power, M.A., an American Speech Language Hearing Association Board Recognized Fluency Specialist, directs the Power Stuttering Center in California. He was a long-time stutterer himself and now treats people who stutter and presents training workshops around the world.