Dusting Off My Marilyn Shoes

Okay, so I know disfluency is perfectly normal for a three-year-old. I already talked about that here, where I told you how fine I was with it all and how I wasn't going to freak out.

And I'm not freaking out exactly. I'm just concerned. See, my son isn't just doing the normal repetitions. He's exhibiting secondary behaviors -- specifically, my secondary behaviors. Now, I'm just smart enough to suspect this is more imitation than a severe case of adult-like stuttering manifesting itself in a toddler. So when he says, "Uuuum, uuuum, uuuuum," before starting a sentence, he's just doing what Mommy does. And when someone mocks him for doing it, although I am incensed and ready to punch the mocker, I remain patient bite my tongue. So far.

Since there's no real consensus on the cause of stuttering, and since its being a learned behavior hasn't been entirely ruled out by science, I'm worried about this imitation turning into the real thing eventually. If I give stuttering to my kids genetically, that's one thing. But if I "give it to them" through modeling, well, that's something else entirely.

I am, therefore, trying to get rid of the "ums." I don't "um" all that much just around the house; it's usually when talking to a stranger or talking on the phone -- when on some level I guess I'd prefer to sound absent-minded or a little slow than to just out-and-out stutter. I have no choice but to go for the out-and-out stutter now, though.

Which means I'm falling back on my old therapy techniques. I don't know exactly what kind of therapy I had -- my last visit to a speech pathologist was over ten years ago, so while the gist of what I learned is still with me, the proper names of things escape me. It wasn't the intensive Precision Fluency Shaping discussed on some of the stuttering blogs to which I link, but there were elements of that kind of therapy in it. I believe, based on some quick Internet research, that it was some combination of fluency shaping therapy and stuttering modification therapy. When I am using my therapy techniques, which I typically use only when reading aloud because that is when I often find myself otherwise completely and totally unable to speak, I use a breathy Marilyn Monroe voice (which, by the way, Marilyn herself used because she stuttered) with a measured rate and exaggerated prosody with sounds very softly articulated . . . and with "easy stuttering"/"easy bounce" when a block or repetition is unavoidable. Talking that way sounds a bit strange, yet a whole lot less strange than the ums and uhs and total silences that occur otherwise.

So now that I've pulled the old therapy techniques out of the closet and dusted them off, I'm using them around the house some, especially when reading aloud to my kids (which, somehow, I can usually do absolutely fluently -- it's just reading aloud elsewhere that gets me) or when I notice my son is stuttering or imitating my secondary behaviors. Hey, if he imitates the bad stuff, maybe he'll imitate my therapy talk. And if that will help his chances of staying fluent, then I'll gladly do it.

And besides, this is the closest I'll ever get to being confused with Marilyn Monroe. Now, if you'll excuse me, this sex goddess must go do some laundry.