Does Emotional Trauma Trigger Stuttering?
Stuttering usually begins to show itself between the years of two to five. In some children the onset comes later, about the time they enter school and some develop stuttering in adulthood. Different stutters show different course of development. The majority seem to run a course in which the initial, effortless syllabic repetitions and some prolongations become full of tension and struggle and then the interrupter or avoidance reactions begins to develop parallelly to this overt development, there is a change from unawareness to surprise to frustration and finally to fear and shame or guilt. This seems to be the most common development track.
At times a child who was struggling or avoiding speech develops effortless speech in a few months. This is due to a change in the environment and building up the confidence in the child. Unfortunately, too many do not recover. They get caught in the whirlpool of self-reinforcement and this disorder becomes self-perpetuating.
When a child begins with simple hesitations and repetitions, it’s very important to ignore these hesitations and repetitions. These could be due to insufficient vocabulary or when the child is trying to think of an appropriate word or an entry of a new sibling in the family or starting school. These hesitations would be very easily overcome by the child as they become proficient in their language, learn the second language and also by learning coping mechanisms. If at this stage, the parent becomes anxious about the child’s speech, then they pass on the anxiety and fear of speaking to the child.
Unknowingly the parents sow the seeds of stuttering and then the dysfluency becomes permanent in nature.
Young child begins to fear the act of speaking and this exhibits a great danger of getting worse. By fear, it means the expectation or anticipation of unpleasantness and most of the unpleasantness comes from the experience of being punished, rejected, mocked or pitied by his listeners, or from the experience of momentarily being unable to communicate, a feeling of his utterances in blocked, or finding himself unable to inhibit the compulsive repetition or prolongation of a syllable. This is very frustrating to the child and in turn it leads to further emotions like anxiety, guilt and hostility.
Keeping in mind the emotions experienced by the stutterer, Stuttering can be expressed as a formula Stuttering = PFAGHC
Wherein:
P – Penalty
F – Frustration A – Anxiety
G – Guilt
H – Hostility
C – Confidence
This formula clearly explains the importance of negative emotions experienced by the stutterer.
These negative emotions are generally experienced by individuals who are very low on Emotional Quotient (EQ) and have a very low self-esteem. If the individual’s EQ is strengthened by enhancing his confidence level, this will reduce stuttering to a very great extent. The physical attributes of stuttering can be taken care of by speech therapy
It is very important to address and understand the emotional aspects of a stutterer for him / her to overcome it completely. At times, it is difficult for the stutterer to get completely cured but if his EQ has improved considerably, then the individual can cope with his disfluency very easily without experiencing negative emotions
