Introducing the Speak Easy device, it transforms many people who have this problem. This little gizmo is a tiny PA system. It plays the person’s voice back into their own ear with a slight delay and change in pitch.

When Zachary’s mum first heard about this device she did not think her son needed it. After all he is one of the best students in his third grade class. Until recently at a bike race when an older boy mimicked his speech, and he let his fists do the talking.

His mum brought him to Portland to a speech pathologist, trained to fit people with the anti stuttering device. Only a few children have ever tried it before, so the pathologist was not quite sure what would happen when he fitted the device into Zachary’s ear.

At first it was a little bit of a disappointed. But then the pitch of the device was raised, everybody smiled especially the pathologist who knows first hand the power of a piece of plastic to change lives. He too has a stuttering problem and wishes this device was around when he was eight.

The inventors of Speech Easy say that stuttering is hot wired into kids about the age of twelve, children under the age of twelve like Zachary might develop normal speech patterns by wearing the device. This device is not cheap. It costs $4,000 and is not covered by insurance.

It is not a medical condition, rather a physical condition, a trait. One has a tendency to sudden physical interruptions in their ability to say what they want to say. They come on suddenly in some people and in some very frequently. It could be after every other word requiring a lot of time and physical effort to carry on. In other people they may have these interruptions infrequently, once a day, a few times a week and may occupy a little bit of time and require less effort.

Stuttering unlike Turrets involves only communicative speech. So if you are just talking to yourself, talking in a closet or to an animal or singing you do not have this problem. If you really want to communicate to someone and it is important to you then the rate of interruptions increases.

Stress can bring on stuttering in a person who has the traits, but it does not cause it. If you know you stutter just tell the person you are talking to that it is going to take a little longer for you to deliver your message.

One of the most important things to realize now, which is different from the past is that caring for young children who stutter, that is those children between two and five years old with trained professionals is extremely effective. In most cases it can prevent the possibility of a lot of suffering and struggling over the years.

They are different things that people do that reduce the frequency of stuttering. They are not necessarily therapeutic, because they may just be ways to avoid real communication. So if you are talking in unison with another person you are not really spontaneously sharing your thoughts and feelings.

Very often stutters are increased by the passion and excitement of what you want to say. Things like being able to learn to keep the energy of your voice down and keep the pace down are extremely helpful.