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Selects: How Stuttering Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi everyone, it's Chuck here. I'm going back in time.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Let's all go back in time together. In fact, this
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Saturday for our select episode to Summertime, August fifteenth, twenty seventeen.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: And this one is about stuttering, how stuttering works. It
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: is pretty interesting, actually, so check it out. Welcome to
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's no our guest producer today,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: which means it's still Stuff you should Know.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: That's right, the Jerry Free edition.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels weird. Eh. She was like, I can't
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: do this today. I'm going to the mall. She's always
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: leaving us for the mall.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I know, that's weird. Ever since we did that mall
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: episode and she learned it was a thing.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Right, you know, She's like, this sounds like my kind
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: of place.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: How are you doing.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: I'm doing pretty good. I'm been wanting to do this
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: one for a long time. Yeah, And I think I
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: started to research it and I was like, oh man,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: maybe we went on tour or something like that. I
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: got pulled away from it and never went back to it,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: So I'm glad we're doing it finally.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: So stuttering if you're in North America or Australia and
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: stammering if you're in the UK. Perhaps is that how
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: it works?
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I know that stammering is what they
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: call it in the UK. Do they call it stuttering
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: in Australia as well?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah? This thing I pulled up just said. In general,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: it's North America and Australia say stutter. In UK they
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: say stammer But it's the same thing.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Right, it's basically I think the way that they get
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: around that is calling it disfluency. No one calls it that,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: the scientists do.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I never heard that word.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Sure, disfluence, So I think that's actually the clinical name
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: for what we call startering or stammering, depending on where
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: you are.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And wasn't that Colin Firth movie called The Disfluent
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Prince Who Would Be King?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Yep? I think that was the working title what they
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: call it, The King's Speech?
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty good movie. That was cute, cute it was.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Anytime you get Jeffrey right in there in an inspirational role,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: it's gonna be a cute movie. No, not Jeffrey right,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Jeffrey Rush Yeah, I agreed. Jeffrey Wright always plays like
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: the super smart, like kind of like a deep state guy.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Wright. He was Baskeocht right, I'm not thinking of
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: the right guy.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Did he play basket Yacht?
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I think so.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I don't think so in the movie Baskeocht.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Isn't Jeffrey Wright.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I don't think so.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: It's Jeffrey Wright.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Jeffrey Wright has been in tons of stuff. Just look
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: him up. You'll be like, oh, that's Jeffrey right.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, this is.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Going terribly already. This is basically like the podcast equivalent
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: of stuttering, because Chuck stuttering, also known as stammering better
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: known as disfluency, is an interrupted flow of speech. Okay,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: but what when it starts to qualify for what we
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: would call like stuttering or stammering, it is it's really noticeable.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: It's it has an interrupting effect, typically on the conversation
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: or the communication that's meant to be going on, the
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: speaking that's going on that's on the far end of
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: the spectrum, on the on the other end of the spectrum.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Apparently just about everybody engages in disfluent speech. I'm particularly
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: guilty because I say a lot, and that's a form
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: of disfluency. And disfluency Chuck comes from the idea that
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: that when you speak fluently, you're speaking in a flowing
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: manner that is easy to follow typically and is uninterrupted.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: But when you start adding things like or pauses or
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing like that, that's disfluency. And again,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: disfluency is a normal part of communication if it occurs
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: about less than ten percent of the time. After that
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: you start to get into the stuttering slash stammering spectrum
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: or side of the disfluent spectrum.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and one thing I learned, You know, you and
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I both QA quality assure each episode, which means it's
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: a little behind the curtain peak. But Jerry will send
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: them back to us and you listen to it once
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: and then give her any like edit notes or whatever
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: and thoughts, and then I will listen to it and
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: generally I have no edit notes.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Found that I know we're both gonna be so self
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: conscious about that.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Well, that's where I was getting to though. I found
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: early on when listening to these episodes of ourselves that
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: it's it doesn't pay to focus on dysfluency in our
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: own language because it can.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Drive you nuts, it really can.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: And so we have a conversational podcast, so we're not
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: trying to you know, we're not Churchill or Henry or
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: was it Henry the six now.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah it was, I don't remember. Just Calin Firth, how
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: about that.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're not Colin Firth addressing the country on the airwaves,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: where it was very important that he come across as
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: you know, a certain had a certain fluency. But when
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: it comes to stuff like this, I think people are
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: used to the fact, like occasionally we'll get emails that
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: go you go to say like an am a lot right, and.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: We're just like response, is better luck finding a different podcast?
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah this is not for you. No, So anyway, I
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: learned to not drive myself crazy with that stuff. No.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: But it's funny you bring that up because I was
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: just yesterday listening to the Stockholm Syndrome episode for stuff
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: you should know selects right, and I must have said
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: like five times over the span of ten words.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: You can't even listen to that, But.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Even I noticed it. I normally have I'm pretty good
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: about tuning it out, but even I noticed at that time,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: and it really kind of raises this issue that the
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: whole thing about starting or stammering is not that it's
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: a it's a disorder or disease, or the sign of
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: an unintelligent person, or that the person can't think of
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: what they mean to say. It's absolutely none of those things.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: It is strictly an interruption in what we would consider
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: normal communication, and so attention is drawn to it, and
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: it turns out that that just makes the problem worse
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: and worse, so it it turns into this vicious cycle
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: to where but that's all that, That's all it is.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: That's it, that's really it. And I mean, like there's
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: there's different theories about what's behind it or what could
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: make it worse and what could possibly make it better,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: but really all it is is just interrupted communication between
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: two people. Because it's not like the person who's who's
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: stuttering stutters in their head, like it's strictly when they're
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: speaking and communicating with other people. So it's it's pretty
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: it's a unique. It's a unique condition.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're they're generally three ways in which that
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: flow can be interrupted. One is repetition. So if you
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: say the first few like the beginning of a word,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: if you repeat it a few times in a row
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: and then say the word, another would be prolongation. So
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: if the word is like you would, you would roll
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: that l out by itself for a long time, and
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: then the last would be an abnormal stoppage, which is
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: just no sound at all coming out. Yeah, block, yeah,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: a complete block. Have you you know anyone with a
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: severe stutter?
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Sure? Yeah, I've known people with stutters before.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know somebody with a very severe stutter. And
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: it's always interesting because I think, and we'll get to
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: like what you should and shouldn't do as a participant
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: in a conversation with someone who stutters. But before I
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: read this, I knew that just as a courtesy, what
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: you probably shouldn't do, which is correct, is try and
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: complete someone's sentence for them, even though that urge is there.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just a natural instinct because people do that,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: you know, when speaking all the time if someone can't
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: think of a word or something. But like you said,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: that's not what's going on.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: No, no, And I mean that, And I think that
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: urge also comes from a a good place typically like
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: you're not You're not saying like, uh, pitch is the
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: word stupid. That's not what you're saying when you when
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: you when you finish their sentence, you're helping them along, right,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: to keep the conversation on track, right, But what you're
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: also doing is saying you're not communicating effectively. I'm jumping
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: in and taking over on your behalf. Just sit there
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: and be quiet. So, yeah, we'll talk more about what
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: to do or what to what not to do when
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: you're in a conversation with somebody with a stutter and I.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Don't know what you mean. You're trying, you're trying to help.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: You're not trying to like be a jerk. Yeah, but
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: it's it's not a help.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: No, it's not.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: But I imagine they also understand to a certain degree.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Too well, probably just from being exposed to it so much, Yeah,
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: for so.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Long, and some people feel, you know, like with anything
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: like this, some people might be used to it and
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: have been like, well, you know, that's how I talk.
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  Speaker 1: I've tried to uh correct it, and I've kind of
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: learned to live with it, and people might still feel
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: really bad about it.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I read a a I guess an essay a
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: blog post basically by a guy named man I can't
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: find it anywhere, great great blog posts where he said
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: I recognize and accept my stutter, and it was on
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: say dot org. His name is Danny Litwack l I
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: t w A c K Litwack. Maybe I embrace and
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: accept my stutter. It's great. He talks about his his
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: experience with growing up with a stutter his whole life
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: and just what a negative impact it had on him
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: for a very long time. And I saw this elsewhere.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: But the first step toward either either getting past your
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: stutter or just getting over the fact that you have
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: a stutter, is accepting that you have a stutter. And
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: that's a that's from what I can gather, a really
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: big first step, because I think people recognize that they
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: have a stutter to themselves, but there's also are they
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: take measures to protect against sharing that with other people.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: So I read another story about another person who grew
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: up with a stutter and when they got to I
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: think college or something. On the first day of this
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: one class, everybody went around and said where they were from,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: and this person said that they forgot where they were from,
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: rather than having to say Wilmington, Delaware because of the
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: W and the D. So instead they told the class
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: they forgot where they were they were born and grew.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Up because in that case there were certain triggers.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the W and the D, the W and Wilmington
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: and the D in Delaware. So there's like a lot
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: of obfuscation that people with stutters engage in. People with
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: stutters are not to be trusted in other words, but
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: they have to they have to basically just take steps
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: to make it seem like they don't have a stutter.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: And I think what this guy Danny Litwack was saying.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: And then, like I said, I saw elsewhere people saying,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: like I have a stutter, like this is how I talk.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: You're gonna have to like either just walk away during
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: the conversation or just let me finish on my own time.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: But this is me and this is how I talk,
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: and I'm accepting it or learning to and you're gonna
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: have to as well. And that's the first step, as
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: I understand it. Once you're an adult, I should say.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I think there are so many things in life where
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: that's the case. Oh yeah, man, Instead of like at
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: a certain point at a certain age, you, I think,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: or at least I got to a point where like, well,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I can really continue to work to try and change
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the thing, or I can just accept that this is
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: kind of who I am, right and be happy.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, don't worry, be happy now.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: So don't ever strive to be better people. Just accept
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: how messed up you are.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Right, and force everyone else around you to accept it.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Should we take a little break here, All right, We'll
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: take a break and we'll come back and get into
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: of the stats, and house stutters can develop right after this,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: all right, so we're back. I promise stats. Yeah, the stats,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: you shall receive one percent roughly of adults in the
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: world stutter. Yeah, but that is not one percent of children,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: because many times have in fact, about seventy five percent
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: of the time, well five percent of children stutter, and
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: about seventy five percent of time they will lose that
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: disfluence as they grow older, right, leaving that at a
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: one percent number as adults.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so in the US there's that means there's
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: about three million or so, maybe three and a half
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: million people adults that stutter. Right, More women, is it?
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: More women, and more men and more men more men,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: and it's like four to five in childhood and then
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: it goes to like three or four in adulthood. So
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: by far, men stutter more than women. And although in
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: strangely boys tend to naturally lose their stutter if they're
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: going to lose their stutter in childhood more than girls.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't think they found any rhyme or
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: reason to that at all.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Right, No, man, there's there's like a lot of lack
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: of understanding as far as stuttering goes scientifically socially, there's
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: just we just don't know that much about it, which
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: is surprising because apparently as far back as Moses, people
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: have been stuttering on record.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: We'll tell that story later. Oh, okay, about sixty There
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: could be a genetic basis because about sixty percent of
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: people who stutter have a family member who stutters.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I also saw that among monozygotic also known
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: as identical twins, if one twin stutters, there's a ninety
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: percent chance that the other one does as well. Oh interesting,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: But for die zygotic, like fraternal twins, there's only a
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: twenty percent chance. So there's clearly a genetic basis to stuttering.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Somehow, right, But it's also one of those things where
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: it can be genetic, doesn't have to be. Sometimes if
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: you like suffer a head trauma, you might develop a stutter. Right.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's developmental. Sometimes it could be obviously with something
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: like Parkinson's disease, that could be a symptom. But those
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: are to me, I think, probably different kinds of stuttering,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: but still shuttering.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Right. So there's basically two main categories. Developmental, which is
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: by far the more the one that accounts for the
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: most cases of stuttering. Yeah, and then the others acquired,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: like you said, say from like Parkinson's or they put
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: you on a prescription that like suddenly is making you stutter.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: There's also psychogenic, which is supposedly an emotional trauma can
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: give you a stutter. I don't know if that's just
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: leftover lore, because apparently they used to think all stutters
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: were the result of some psychology.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Just say, well, no, it's possible, or some people have
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: it and just haven't figured out that it's not the
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: case at all, or if there really is a small
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: section of people who do have psychogenic stutters, but all
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: of those would fall under acquired and then the other
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: one is developmental boy.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: How about that guy that took mushrooms and quit stuttering? Yeah,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: so interesting.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: I saw a Ted talk at his once.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like all about mushroom saving the world.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Paul's dammit.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He he leads off our article on how stuff
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: works and he had a severe stutter. Was very affected
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: by it, kind of Withdrew socially. Went camping one time,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: took a bunch of psychedelic mushrooms and climbed a tree,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: got up there, decided he could not climb down, and
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: then the storm came in and got really intense, and
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: he he said he sort of felt one with the world,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: which sounds about right. And eventually the storm passed. He
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: came down and while he was up there during this
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: intense experience, he was like, I will not stutter anymore,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: and he just kept saying that. Came down and he
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: had lost his stutter.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and apparently he didn't relapse, which is pretty unusual,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: So he started studying mushrooms for a living.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he became a mycologist. Yeah, man, and I gotta
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: I've said this before, I'll say it again. One of
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: the best articles I've ever read my life was called
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: blood Spore, Yeah, and I think it was in Harper's
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: and it was about a murder in the world of mycologists.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: It was just so interesting.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Blood Spore coming soon to a theaternew I hope so
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: you should write the script.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So Stamids was remarkably lucky in that he just
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: basically decided not to stutter anymore and stop stuttering. Apparently
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: the fact that he didn't relapse is probably what's most remarkable,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: because I think relapsing among stuttering treatments is actually pretty common.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, but again, this is once you get
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: out of childhood. It's fairly common to have to develop
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: a stutter as you're a child, as you're learning to talk,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: and then it's equally common to lose that that stutter
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: as you age, usually within eighteen months of developing the
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: onset of the stutter. But then as you acquire this
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: or develop this stutter as you get older, it apparently
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: becomes more and more set in. And that seems to
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: be because of the plasticity of your brain when you're
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: a kid.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Start, it's almost like, from what I can gather, it's
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: like if you have a stutter past a certain point,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: it almost gets locked into your brain as your neural
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: pathways solidify and cement. Yeah, like you learned to have
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: a stutter after a while.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think they say to wait. I think
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: they wait like three months before they even start looking
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: into it, because that's how fleeting a stutter can be
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: when you're a little kid. Right after three months, they'll say,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: all right, maybe we should start looking into this.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Right, you would want to go to a speech pathologist
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: to be able to diagnose it. Yeah, And usually what
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: they're looking for and you take your child who's developed
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: a stutter to a speech pathologist is how pronounced it is.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: There's a guy in I think the late nineties named
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Barry Guitar. He sounds like he played, you know, guitar
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: for the band Boston.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: He knows all the chords. No, wait, that's guitar George.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Right, Sorry, what's that from?
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Come on, guitar George? Is that a Ray Stevens song?
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: No, it's from Dire Straits Sultan's of Swing.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Oh gotcha. That's a good song. Yeah, it is a
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: good song. I love it so very Guitar came with
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: five levels of stuttering development. And I already referenced the
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: first I know his name's all that. I already referenced
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: the first level, which is you you have less than
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: ten percent of your speech is disfluent. That's that's anybody
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: walking around like that, right, Yeah, unless you're like the
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: King of England or something. And then ironically unless you're
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: that one king who had a stutter. Yeah, and then
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: it goes on the from there and just gets worse
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: and worse. But one of the things that's attendant with
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: these different stages of development of a stutter are like
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: emotional problems or symptoms like comorbid symptoms along with the stutter.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: So there can be things like blinking, like like pursing
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: your lips, where you're frustrated, where you're angry, where you're fearful,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: where you're anxious, in conjunction with stuttering. And so this
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: is the kind of thing that the speech pathologists will
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: be looking for to kind of diagnose your kid like, no,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: this is just normal kid stuff. Or actually the stutters
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: developing faster than we'd like it too, so we need
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: to start treating it now.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Well, that makes sense because dopamine. We talked a lot
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: about dopamine on the show The neud Transmitter. If you
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: have an overabundance of dopamine we talked about in the
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Tourette's episode, Right, is that one of the things that
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: can be comorbid with stuttering because I know too much
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: dopamine can lead to a stutter as well.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, supposedly, so Dopamine controls movement, right, Yeah, and if
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: you have too much, it makes you have ticks like
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Tourette you're.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Saying, well, it can.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: So I noticed this that Parkinson's and dopamine are I
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: think they're like Parkinson's has to do with too much dopamine. Yeah,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: and Parkinson's is one of the ways that you could
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: acquire neurogenically a stutter. Yeah, So that makes total sense
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: that there's something in your brain with dopamine transmission to
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: where you have maybe too much of it, and so
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: you're trying to you're having trouble but getting the thoughts
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: in your head into the movements that it takes to
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: create the speech.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean it's a little clumsy the way the
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: brain does this. It would be a lot easier if
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: it was streamlined in one part of the brain, but
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: there are two distinct parts of the brain that deal
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: with language processing, and one is the one that processes
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: it and one articulates it with in a motor skill way.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: And when those two things have done brain imaging mapping
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: and they found that there's some sort of discontinuity between
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: those two processes going on. Right, Well, there's a stutter.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: That's stuttering, right, so it could be too much dopamine.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: That's one thing again, the research into stuttering is so
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: basic at the moment, it's it's really surprising. What they're
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out, though, is are you born with
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: the stutter like you when you're born, You're you're going
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: to have this problem because your your brain isn't using
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: dopamine properly or overproducing dopamine, or are you as your
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: brain's developing, something goes a little off to the side
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: to the left and your brain has trouble with dopamine
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: from that point on. So they're trying to figure out
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: the etiology of it.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: In other words, did you look into this the genes
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the four genes?
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a little bit.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Did do you find names for those?
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: I did not?
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: That isn't either.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: That is how basic the research is right now. Yeah,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: they're not even saying what genes they're finding.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently they did discover four different genes that are
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: linked to these proteins. And these proteins are sort of
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: like they're responsible for what's called cellular trafficking, so they
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: kind of make sure that the elements of the cell
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: end up where they need to be within that cell. Right,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: And they said that more than one neurological disorder can
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: be linked to this trafficking process, So I guess it's
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: related to those proteins in those genes.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but they're like, who knows, Well, just like they've
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: gotten to the point where they have identified there's something
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: up with these proteins in the cells and it's linked
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: to stuttering somehow. Now just give us like ten years
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: to go figure out how, right, But yeah, they're starting
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: to realize now there's some sort of genetic basis to
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: this to stuttering.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think the twin study that says
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: a lot right there for sure. You know, yep, can
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: we talk about Moses.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: I think it's high time we talked about Moses. We've
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: been dancing around the burning bush for a while now.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: I can't believe that guy will laugh.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Well, I was laughing because every time I think of
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: burning Bush, I think of three Amigos and how funny
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: that singing Bush was.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: I never saw that one.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Three Amigos.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I could do the three amigo salute, but I
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: never saw it.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Oh man, that's a classic. Really yeah?
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Oh sure? Why is that surprising? I don't know.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: I feel like I would have seen it if free
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: comedic icons.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: You're right, funny movie.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Oh I know why I never saw because chevy Chase
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: is in it. Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: No.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: I remember my dad raised me a really dislike chill
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: That's right, so I probably wasn't allowed to see it.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: You see Fletch, right, I think I stopped watching Fletch
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: like part way through. My dad had a real influence
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: on me. And why didn't he like chevy Chase.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Though, I have no idea you had a bone to pick.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: I guess I think he thought he was a jerk
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: or something.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Well he was all right.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: It turns out dad was right, all right.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: So Moses, I know a lot about the Bible, because,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: as listeners know, I was raised in the church. But
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I didn't know this. I don't remember this story at all.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I hadn't heard it either.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: So apparently Moses uh was a little baby at one point,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: and the Pharaoh said was warned, you know that Moses
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: was was gonna not be his friend when he grew up.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: So he said, all right, let me try something out.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give this little baby, Moses, a choice
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: between a bowlful of gold and a bowlful of hot coals.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: That's what you do with babies.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Jesus the gold, then I'm going to kill him.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, typical typical Egyptian stuff.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so of course with a baby, Moses is going
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: to reach for the gold. And then apparently an angel
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: intervened Todd Todd the angel and directed little Moses' hand
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: to the hot coals instead.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: A little gruffly, if you ask Moses.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Moses grabbed a hot coal put it in his mouth,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and that's how he got to the stutter.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: And he's blamed Todd ever since.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: And here's what I don't get is that Moses went
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: to God and was like, hey, man, I'm supposed to
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: lead the people out of Egypt. I have a bad stutter.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Can you you know, can you do something for me
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: for God?
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: And God said no sweat.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he said God, mister ed.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: You didn't know that, yeah, because he was God.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: So God said, yeah, sure I can help you out.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Just have your brother Aaron take the mic.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Right, And Moses was like, I was more thinking like
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: you'd perform a miracle on me, but yeah, I probably
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: could have thought of having Aaron speak for me as well. God,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: thanks for that, though.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know how I missed that story.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: He apparently there's a quote I am heavy of mouth
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: and heavy of tongue, and I saw some Bible sight
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: where they were debating whether or not what they were
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: talking about was a stutter. Apparently, some later Hebraic text
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: said that Moses had trouble pronouncing th h's thorn sounds
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: it sounds more like he had a lisp than a stutter.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Who knows. Let's go as stuttering though, because lot of
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: people do say that Moses had a stutter, but he
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: over king. Yeah, it's pretty thick. It's I've gotten used
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: to it, but I remember at first when we first
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: started doing this, like, man, I should not be speaking
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: for a living like this is I have a speech impediment,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: pure and simple.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: No, it's just everyone now, just thinks, Hey, that's Josh's voice.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's so grating, smooth and silky.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: M hm. Who else in history.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Josh, let's see the emperor Justinian apparently, or no, I'm
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: sorry I was wrong. It was Demosthenes. He was a
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Greek statesman. He apparently was smart enough to say, who
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: could help me with a stutter? Oh? How about an actor?
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Somebody who speaks broadcasts their voice for a living. So
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: he hired an actor to help him, and that actor
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: had him do things like chew on pebbles and try
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: to talk.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Smart, he's He did his speeches while he's walking uphill.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I guess to control his breathing. This is actually pretty
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: sharp stuff. I think out of all the historical treatments
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: that we're going to cover, this one might most closely resemble,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: aside from the mouthful of pebbles, modern treatment for stuttering.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is to say speaking exercises.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Well, you did say Justinian. I don't know if Justinian
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: had the stutter, but his at the very least his physician,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Atis of Amita, was one of the first people to say, Hey,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: maybe that the frenulum, you know, that little flap of
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: skin under your tongue right the connector to the bottom
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: of your mouth. He was the first one that said,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: why don't we start slicing that thing up and just
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: the tongue in general. Over the years there have been
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: all kinds of surgeon that tried variations of slicing the
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: friend or cutting down of the tongue itself.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Now, I could probably use that one by HD Chiguine chegouine.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that's how you say it the second way. Yeah,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: he basically said, stuttering as a result of an oversized tongue,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: which I have. Let's just slice and dice a little
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: off the sides. But no, of course it didn't work.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: It's just horrific apparently. Though at the same time there
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: were these surgeons who get all the press because their
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: stuff is so horrific. But there are also other people
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: who were kind of on the right track a little
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: more like Moses Mendelssohn in the eighteenth century. He thought
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: that there were too many ideas or thoughts that were
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: flowing at once, and that it was basically it was
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: blocking speech. There's too much trying to get out, basically
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: like the three Stooges model of stuttering. Remember they're all
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: trying to go through the door.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, so you've got too much to say
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: and you want to just get it right. Interesting, that
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: makes a little sense.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Erasmus Darwin. He said that it was bashfulness, emotions like
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: bashfulness that messed up the process of speaking, right, okay,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: definitely onto something there as well. And then a psychologist
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: named Sandow said that it was brought on by either
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: a dread of speaking or an over eagerness to speak,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: kind of like what Moses Mendelssohn was saying in the
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: latter example.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Can they brought out by two completely opposite things?
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So a lot of this actually is kind
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: of in step with our current thought about stuttering. And
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: so either that means that these guys in the eighteenth
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: century were prescient, or our understanding of stuttering is stuck
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: in the eighteenth century, right, I'm very curious to know
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: which one it is.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Shall we take a break? Yeah, all right, We're going
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: to come back after this final break and talk about
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: therapies that don't involve cutting your tongue apart. All right. So,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: now we're in the modern days and we're not taking
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: scalpels to the frenulum any longer because they've realized that
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: it's not a physical affliction of the tongue. It's somewhere
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: inside the brain most likely. Yeah, and they have a
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: lot of recommendations for when a child starts to stutter
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: in it and it sticks. And you found some other
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: tips too, which are great for parents, and kind of
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: one of the main ones is is give your kid
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: plenty of room to talk, plenty of time to talk,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: make sure they express themselves fully, because one of the
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: side effects of having a stutter is your child may
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: just end up retreating and being super quiet.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I got from this these tips for parents that
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: there's kind of this maybe not fully spoken idea that
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: you can actually cement your child's stutter if you handle
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: it poorly. Yeah, when they start to develop it, which
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: knowing that just makes you even more tense about dealing
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: with it correctly, I guess, which could make the whole
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: process even even harder. But there are some pretty brainless
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: things to do. This one almost killed me when I
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: saw it. Chuck the site I think Kid's Health is
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: where I got this one, but it said maintain natural
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: eye contact with your child. Try not to look away
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: or show signs of being upset. Yeah, get like just
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: break the arrow off in my heart.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty sad.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Like, don't look away and disgust when your child is stuttering,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: you monster, Go look in the mirror and take a
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: bamboo shoot and put it underneath your fingernail and think
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: about what you've done.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Another good one is and this feels like something that
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: would be easy to do because it seems well intentioned
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: to say, like, you know, slow down, son, take your time,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: taking your breath. They say to not do that, yeah,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: because you know, might make things worse.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because what you're doing then is you're drawing attention
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: to the idea that your child is not speaking correctly
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: and rather than just apparently letting them communicate at their
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: own pace. Right. Yeah, there's also seems to be a
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: suggestion that the child has learned the child, your kid
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: has learned to speak to stutter because they're trying to
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: get too much out at once. Yeah, and they may
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: have picked that up from you if you have like
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: a rush rush rush pace in your household. Yeah, one
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: of the things that they suggest is it just kind
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: of slow things down at home. And in addition to
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: like like schedule wise, and like just taking time and
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: just like letting everybody breathe, maybe a little more than you.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Guys are also speaking more slowly, not just to your kid,
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: but also to other people when your kid's around. Yeah,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: speaking slowly, setting an example. It's called modeling your own
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: speech so that your kid feels like they don't have
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: to blurt everything out at once to get their point across.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: They they're going to be heard no matter how long
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: it takes. You're going to sit there and just listen
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: to them speak.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and like really listen. Another thing that seems like
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: a no brainer, but really just try and focus on
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: what they're saying and not the fact that they're stuttering
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: those words out. But you know, when your kid tells
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: you a story about something that happened at school, right,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: don't concentrate or even bring attention to the fact that
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: it's being said with a stutter, but just take take
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: in their story and if it takes a little while longer,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: then just respond accordingly.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And in that same vein, like, don't tell your
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: kid to stop and start over when they start stuttering. Yeah,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: Like like they have to get the sentence just perfect
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: or else you're not going to hear them out, and
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: don't tell them to think before speaking. That's not helping
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: anything at all.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Be honest. Yeah, like, don't try and mask it and
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: say that, well, you don't have a stutter, like this
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: is just you know, you're just in a hurry or
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: something like. They just say to be really honest and say,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: you know what, you have a stutter and it's a
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: disfluence and it's nothing to worry about and if you'd like,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: maybe we can talk to someone that can do some
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: exercises with you. And you know, just like all this
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: sounds like no brainer, not being a monster parent.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but again some of it does like telling your
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: kid like, okay, slow down, take a breath. Now, what
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: are you saying? Like you think you're helping your kid,
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: you're not so so not all some of it is monstrosity.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Others is just like this is this is what people
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: would naturally do, but it's and it seems intuitive, but
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: you're wrong. Your intuition is dead wrong. Just let your
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: kid talk and listen to what they're saying, not how
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: they're saying it. Right, and apparently this is this is
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: a good These are good, This is good advice. Wow,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: it took me a second to get out. Thank you, though,
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Chuck for patiently hearing it. Then sure, this is good
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: advice to helping your kid just naturally shed the stutter,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: the developmental stutter. We should say, all of this we've
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: been talking about is is dealing with a developmental stutter,
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: although a lot of it just applies to people with
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: with adult stutters out in the real world as well.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Like you can you can take just about all of
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: this and apply it to a business conversation if you
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: have a coworker who has a stutter, like, don't look
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: away in disgust. There's there's good advice right there all
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: throughout your life when you're when you're watching or listening
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: to somebody with the stutter.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean maybe don't do that at all, and like, yeah,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, life advice.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: But it's it's a good point is if you're sitting
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: there and you're and you don't look like you're hurrying
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: somebody with the stutter along, You're just engage, You're you're
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: into the conversation no matter how long it takes. I
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: can't imagine how much that must help. And one thing
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: that we didn't really, I think point out that that
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: bears pointing out is that people who stutter do not
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: necessarily stutter in this same frequency throughout like their day.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's definitely situations that are that are going to
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: make the stutter way more pronounced. They're almost exclusively associated
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: with higher anxiety situations. I think the National Stuttering Association
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: says that the number one situation where a stutter is
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: going to be about as bad as it gets is
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: during a job interview. And so employers, please don't think
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: that this is how this person talks. This is probably
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: as bad as their stutter gets. However, they're stuttering in
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: the in the job interview. So if they're say at
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: home and they're just talking to their wife or their
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: kid or something, this stutter's probably going to be far
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: less pronounced than it would be if they were having
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: to give a speech at their friend's wedding, you know.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I found that with this person, Emily, and
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I know that it's it can vary a lot within
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: a conversation. It's a very severe stutter. And then they
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: will say like a couple of sentences straight through with nothing,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: and then I think, oh man, ok, it catches me
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: off guard because I'm so used to the stutter, and
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: I think, well, you know, that's super interesting to me.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: You just like blurted out a couple of two or
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: three long sentences with zero stutter or stammer on the
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: same thing.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: I know, but they're fun to say together, aren't they
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: They are?
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know, just find it really fascinating. You know,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: speech pathology can come a long way. I know that
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: there are Well, it's funny. I looked online about curing stuttering,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: and of course there is no like patented cure. But
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Tony Robbins after listening to our or recording our motivational
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: speaker thing, I saw a video. I didn't watch it.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I just saw the title. It said Tony Robbins cure's
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: a man of a stutter in seven minutes.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: So I was like, oh, come on, Yeah, yeah, I
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: didn't see anything that said stutter stuttering cures. There's basically none.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I did not look into I didn't have time
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: to look into this new device though, did you.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, a little bit. It seems pretty untested as
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: far as real world application goes, but it makes sense intuitively,
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: and apparently it does help in a clinical setting.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: So basically it's like an ear like a hearing aid, right,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: but it changes the person who's speaking's voice and a
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: little bit does it replay it? Yeah, out loud for everybody.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: No, just for the person in their ear right. Because
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: the one of the ways that somebody who stutters will
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: be able to talk perfectly well is speaking in unison
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: or singing. Oh okay, so like you, you can be
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: sitting there talking to somebody just one on one, and
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: your stutter could be quite severe. But then if you
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: and the person agree to sing together, you may not
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: stutter at all the whole time you're singing. And I
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: have no one has any idea why that's the case.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: They just know. And this device is based on that
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: that when we're talking in unison, or someone who has
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: a stutter's talking in unison with somebody else, their stutter
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: tends to go away. So what this does is it
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: creates an echo. There's a bit of a lag with
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: their own voice, so they feel like they're talking in unice.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: With themselves, and.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: So it helps the stutter again, at least in a
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: clinical setting. I don't know if it would just be
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: too distracting in a conversation or what. But I got
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: the impression that they haven't tested it fully or proven
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: it fully outside of the lab.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Well, the singing makes sense because remember mel Tillis, the
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: name sounds familiar. He was a country singer who had
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: a really pronounced stutter, kind of around like the fifties,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: sixties and seventies. Seventies is when he was biggest. But yeah,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: but you know he was on like Hehaw and stuff,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: randall aupry Bird and then has has had a tough
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: stutter when he was talking to the audience and that's
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: what he was known for. Oh yeah, yeah, it was
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: like you know, obviously wouldn't act, but.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: It was his stick.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Speaking of so another famous stutter chuck, are we there?
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Porky Pig. Yeah yeah, so I was I
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: was looking up Porky Pig, right, because you know, that's
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: an unusual choice to have a cartoon character who stutters
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: U And it turns out that Porky Pig has a
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: stutter because the guy who originally did Porky Pig, Joe Doherty,
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: had a stutter in real life. Oh really yeah pretty sweet? Huh?
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Pretty heartwarming? Well wait there's more. Yeah, he did Porky
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Pick for the first two years, and then they fired
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: him because he kept missing the cues because of his stutter,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: and they brought in a guy who didn't have a
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: starter to do Porky Pig from that point on.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: But he did it with a stutter, Yeah, because it
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: was established right, Well, that's creddy and that's sad. That
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: is sad. Yeah, except Porky Pig's trick was to go
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: to a different word.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is a fairly common technique though.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine. So yeah, like if you get hung
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: up on something, just say something else that means the
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: same thing.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good one. Or I think people will say, oh,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: I can't remember and just act like they can't remember
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: the word when they know full well what word they're
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: going for. They just can't they can't say it, so
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: they just pretend like they couldn't or they forgot what
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: they were talking about.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Should we name off some of these other famous stutters,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: because I think if you're an adult stutter, you probably
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: know these people. Sure you may have looked it up
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: to feel a kinship, but maybe if you're a little
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: kid out there, it might make you feel better to
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: know that Darth Vader himself, James Earl Jones was a stutter, yeah,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: big time. Emily Blunt, Yep, she's terrific. Samuel Jackson surprising
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: right there. Yeah, because the F bombs flow from his mouth.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: He was born with that talent. Who else from pulp fiction,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Harvey Kayitel.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't see Harvey Kytel stuttering.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: No, And I guess all of these people just went
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: through speech therapy. Huh.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: I would guess so, or else they all took.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Mushrooms because it doesn't say whether or not they were
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: like stuttered as a child or when they overcame it.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: But Nicole Kidman, Albert Einstein, Oh really, Carly Simon, and.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: You said Winston Churchill earlier too, he had a stutter
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Bruce Willis.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kysing too. Huh. Shack I could see. I
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: think I've actually seen Shack stutter before on TV.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Really see Bill Walton, Tiger Woods, Charles Darwin, Jane Seymour,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: doctor Quinn herself. Yeah, Joe Biden, who will hopefully run
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: for president, right, you became his stutter?
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well all of them did, which is great. But
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: at the same time, there are people out there who
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: have accepted that they have a stutter. They probably spend
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: a lot of time and money trying to get rid
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: of it and it hasn't gone anywhere, so they've kind
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: of embraced it. So I mean, if you've gotten rid
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: of your stutter and you've overcome it, that's great. But
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: if you've also embraced it, good for you as well.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, how about this one? You want to talk
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: about overcoming a stutter Kendrick Lamar?
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, wow.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: If you can overcome a stutter and then become Kendrick Lamar, right,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: then that should be a shining example people that you
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: can do anything.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or if you embrace your stutter, good for you
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Agreed, because you could be Mel Tillis, who was the
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Kendrick Lamar of country music, or Porky Pig, the Kendrick
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Lamar of cartoon.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: You got anything else about stuttering?
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else. We'd love to hear from people, though, huh.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Get in touch with us. And in
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: the meantime, you can find more stuff about stuttering, including
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: a lot of support and resources for parents all over
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: the web, and there's things like say dot org and
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: the National Stuttering Association and all sorts of great resources
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: if you are looking for some information. And since I said, uh,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: it's time for the listener mail, all right, I'll.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Call this coming to see you in Chicago, but by
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: this point we'll be I went to see you in Chicago.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Right and was disappointed.
• 48:42
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• 48:44
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• 48:47
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• 48:49
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• 48:52
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• 48:55
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• 48:56
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• 49:47
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• 49:49
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• 49:58
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• 50:02
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• 50:05
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• 50:12
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• 50:14
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• 50:16
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