What do getting dressed and speaking have in common? What could this be? Actually there is so much that they have in common. First off, we pretty much need to do both of them every day. Well, maybe on the weekends you can hang out alone and avoid doing both, but that’s temporary. We can take staying in all day and not talking to anyone for just so long.

Let’s look at these 2 activities from a different angle. How much do you think about how to get dressed? Do you think about whether to put your right foot into your pant leg before the left leg, or how to bend your elbow to put it through the sleeve? Unless you’re a toddler just learning how to dress yourself, you do these actions without thinking about it. Your intent is being dressed. The “how” to do it is not part of your conscious thought.

Talking is the same. We speak because we have a thought that we want someone to know. The intent is to get the message out. How to do this requires absolutely no thought. Normally fluent speakers don’t think about which words they will say and in which order. They don’t start reviewing the rules of grammar. Their mouth moves with the same lack of consciousness that was involved in moving your fingers to button your shirt.

Do you speak the way you get dressed? If your answer is “no” because you are often very conscious of talking, thinking about the words or trying to figure out how to make those hard sounds, then you are at a risk for stuttering.

If you want to learn more about this and other aspects of stuttering, click here.

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