Stuttering has been in the shadows of public awareness for years. Sure, no one dies from stuttering, and it is not pervasive--only one percent of people stutter. Yet it is a malady that has not received a great deal of attention. But stuttering is no longer in the shadows. In November 2010, The King’s Speech, a British historical drama directed by Tom Hooper and written by David Seidler which won an Academy Award, made stuttering part of the public conversation. Moviegoers learned of the embarrassing pain that most “People Who Stutter” (PWS) suffer. Positioned in the 1930s, the movie is about the young man who became the King of England just prior to the Second World War. It reveals the painful experiences that stuttering created for him. But, even more than that, Lionel Logue, the speech trainer in the movie, brings into focus this shocking fact: stuttering is not about speech! It is about the “thinking” that is mostly unconscious and in “the back of the mind” of the PWS. Many things in this movie give support to the theories that you will find in the pages of this book. In this ground-breaking volume, the author details a completely new approach to treating this debilitating condition. It explains both the structure of stuttering and blocking and provides the cognitive tools for gaining more fluency. From identifying the origins of stuttering, through teaching how to think different to working with stress, the author provides a unique approach to achieving more fluency. This book is an excellent resource for speech pathologists in working with the emotional aspects of stuttering. Bob uses clear language and gives great examples that make complex principles easy to understand. As a person who stutters, I am amazed at Bob's keen and accurate insight into the world of a stutterer without being a person who stutters. --Marilee L. Fini, M.A. CCC/SLP At long last, speech language therapists and those who stutter have tools to address the most overlooked component of stuttering-the habits of thought that drive the speech block. The neuro-semantic processes described in this book will help the PWS to build a framework for fluency that can lead to permanent change.”—John C. Harrison, National Stuttering Association Originally published in hardcover with the title Mastering Blocking and Stuttering.
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