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How Samagra Goes to Work

1st Assessment
First we do a brief assessment of family and the individual, rule out other medical issues and discuss general principles of stammering and counseling.

Opening Up
Stammering can create a lot of pent up feelings. For example, who does he or she hold responsible for their stammer? Do they think that they are all alone facing this issue? Do they hold feelings of shame or guilt? The person is encouraged to discuss these things in a trustful, supportive atmosphere. As a recovering PWS himself, Dr. Srivastra’s personal stories and insights often help the person accept and talk about her / his issues, feelings and fears. Sometimes they are asked to do some writing about their struggles, to facilitate openness.

Recording / Playback
Children and adolescents are encouraged to record their speech (talking or reading) and then review it with the counselor. We acknowledge and celebrate the good speech they have; almost always fluent speech exceeds dysfluencies. They are also encouraged to ‘play with’ DAF. Talking or reading with different settings for ‘delay’ or ‘frequency’, recording it and then playing it back. Sometime phones are used to practice various strategies.

What Really Happens When You Stammer?
Helping the person to identify what they actually do when they stammer is an important piece of the puzzle, although they usually don’t like it. What happens in the face? What happens in the body? Together we find out, and help the person to freeze, isolate, and identify these behaviours. Only then can they gain conscious control over them and finally eliminate them. For speech itself, we use either the fluency shaping approach (?) or stutter- modification (?). (linked to definitions).

Breathing
Breathing is an important element in working with stammering problems: how to breath abdominally, how to begin sentences on exhale, and so on. Breathing exercises also contribute to the meditative element of counseling.

Staying On Top of Things
We try to constantly learn new skills and concepts and practice them in collaboration with people facing speech issues. Internet has been our important resource.

Working with Children with a Lisp
After ruling out medical / surgical issues, we help the child with ‘modelling’ and ‘recasting’; Older children are helped to explore different parts of their palate (with a moist finger), and different movements (positions) of tongue, lips, jaw in production of different sounds.

Working with Mainstream Special Needs
When working in a school, we make no exclusive groups - we encourage all children, with any issue or special developmental need, to sit together, participate in planned activities, and get counseling.

But at Samagra itself, speech issues are at the forefront. Currently we lack human and other resources to deal with a wide range of mainstream special needs. If we work with mainstream disability, our work with CWS/PWS will get rapidly marginalised, because mainstream society does not view speech issues as a disability worthy of intervention.

Samagra’s services are offered free of charge

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The primary tenet of Samagra is that we first must learn to be at peace with ourselves. Only then, with that consciousness, can we go about doing whatever needs to be done. Our approach to stammering and speech issues can be summarized like this-

The Sufferer Takes Initiative

In order for healing to be complete and meaningful, the sufferer must take initiative in his/her own recovery. When others take the central role, however well-meaning and qualified they may be, the sufferer becomes a victim who needs rescuing. The sufferer must shift from the role of 'victim' to that of ‘actor’ in his or her own destiny. This is important not only in speech, but in so many other areas of personal development. SLPs and counselors also play an important role. They should provide information, help with specific techniques, offer feedback, and be supportive – but they should ultimately leave responsibility to the sufferer.

Healing is a Social Process

Since communication happens between at least two people, failure in communication has two perspectives. When someone stammers, the reactions of the listener – whether actual or imagined – are keenly observed and noted by the person stammering. In this sense, most speech issues are ‘social’ experiences. For this reason, recovery is also a social process, but in a reverse direction. People with speech issues must accept and help each other. Help groups and support groups become deeply significant for this reason. People Who Stammer are especially effective in helping one another to regain confidence, self worth and communication skills.

Educating the Public

Many people are unaware about stammering and its issues, uncomfortable when they suddenly encounter it, and unwilling to continue the conversation. This is nobody’s fault: education and understanding is the only way to help both the parties. For this purpose, Samagra publishes and distributes books and pamphlets on stuttering, in both English and Hindi. We also educate people during frequent visits to schools and villages.

Everybody Stammers Sometimes

Who hasn’t stammered? Even the best newscasters stammer many times every day in front of millions of people. There are very few human beings who never bounce on a word or experience a momentary block in speech.