Pauses!? Overcoming Reluctance and Demonstrating Necessity

Peter Toney
National Association Self-help and Initiatives on Stuttering (NASIS),
PO Box 104, I220 Sofia, Bulgaria

SUMMARY

The basic part of our therapy consists of counseling, persuasion and motivating clients to use many pauses in speaking. We combine this instruction with many exercises in different situations and give them the opportunity to practice the skills of (l) differentiating between stuttering blocks and real pauses; and (2) identifying similarities between “long pauses” and natural pauses. Speech style after mastering the use of pauses should appear easier and more fluent than that characterized by moments of tension and stuttering, as in previous utterances. The pauses can serve as a stimulus to reflect on ways to achieve fluent speech.
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