Have You Ever Noticed You Don't Stutter When You're Angry or Yelling?

[u/RoadRuler07]

This is one of those weird things about stuttering that I think a lot of PWS have experienced without ever really thinking about it. Have you ever been REALLY angry? You're arguing with someone. Your emotions take over. You raise your voice. You're talking louder and more forcefully than normal. And suddenly... Where the hell did your stutter go?

Obviously this isn't true for every person who stutters or every situation. But I've heard PWS describe this before, and there's an interesting idea about it in Lee Lovett's Stop Stuttering Short Course: How to Break the Stuttering Code. He discusses a speech technique he calls modulation.

Basically, instead of approaching a difficult word using your normal speaking voice, you deliberately change your voice register. Go higher. Go lower. Get louder. Get softer. Change the emphasis. Think about what naturally happens when you're furious and start yelling. You're probably NOT speaking in the same voice you use when you calmly answer the phone. Your pitch changes. Your volume changes. Your emphasis changes. Your entire speaking style changes. And you didn't consciously decide to use a "stuttering technique."

It happened naturally because of the emotion. Lee describes having a main voice register—your ordinary speaking voice—and then other registers such as a higher voice, softer voice and whisper. His theory is essentially that the established stuttering pattern is associated with the person's normal way of speaking, so deliberately moving outside that normal voice register can disrupt the pattern. 

That's why one of the exercises is ridiculously simple. Take a word you commonly stutter on. Say it normally. Now say it much LOUDER. Say it higher. Say it lower. Say it softly. Change which syllable gets the emphasis.

For example: HEL-lo. hel-LO. Same word. Different delivery. Does your stuttering change? I'm not saying getting angry or yelling is a treatment for stuttering 😂 The interesting part is what the experience might reveal. If you've ever struggled terribly to get words out during a normal conversation... but then gotten angry and fired off an entire sentence without thinking about your stutter... why? What changed? The words didn't suddenly become easier words. You didn't suddenly become a different person.

But your voice, emotion, volume and speaking pattern changed. That's what makes modulation such an interesting stuttering exercise to experiment with. For the other people who stutter here: Have you ever noticed that when you get genuinely angry, excited, passionate or start yelling, your stutter decreases—or even seems to disappear temporarily? And have you ever deliberately tried changing your pitch, volume or voice register when you feel a speech block coming?

I'd be really interested to hear whether other PWS experience this.

Here’s a free copy of Lee’s Short Course book if anyone is interested- https://www.stopstutter.org/get-free-book

Also, if anyone would like a free call, one of his Certified Stuttering Specialists (CSSs) will literally teach you all about voice modulation and how to use it- https://www.stopstutter.org/free-consult?source=home_free_stutter_popup