Hi Gábor. Lee is right, the SAM meetings are a great place to do that, and I think they are extremely motivating for PWS to hear so many PWSS speak. But, my opinion for cases like yours (PWS), your main goal is to become a PWSS, and as you know, to get there, you need to hear as much fluency coming out of your lips as possible, and as little disfluency as possible. Stuttering is like a fire, and our stutters and blocks are like gasoline. The more bad incidents we have, the more gasoline we’re pouring to the fire. We need that fire to consume itself, until it disappears. That’s why we always recommend to use the chat and write a message if you need to, in order to avoid bad incidents.
You can also try to exaggerate the use of the Crutches, and practice them in the SAM meetings too. In any case, in these meetings we’re all PWS and PWSS. So, whisper to us, use EXTREME pronunciation, insert full stops every few words, use synonyms, (d)rop the (f)irst (l)etter of (y)our (w)ords, we will understand what you say, and we’ll be happy to see you work on your speech 😉
And as I said before, you can always write your ideas.

That’s because you’re actually planning your words most likely.

In any case, this are the 2 main ways how smiling has helped me, and continues to help me:

Before speaking to a stranger (for example, before asking for info at an office, store, etc). Before you approach them, start smiling and try not to think your words.

It has also helped me and made the other crutches easier to use. I rarely use that Crutch alone, I always combine it with other ones.

Hi Gábor,
we have sent your enquiry to WSSA, they should reply to you any time soon (if they haven’t replied you already).

that’s fantastic, Gábor! Congratulations. Make sure to celebrate every time you say something fluently, even if it is a simple “good morning”. I used to do that, and it helps.
One of the things that helps me the most is slowing down. I enjoy speaking a lot more when I slow down.
And don’t forget that using the Crutches is not a failure. It’s the exact opposite. It’s a huge success! Why? Because thanks to them you managed to avoid a bad incident and therefore speak fluently, and most likely in the past you would have stuttered in that same situation! So celebrate it!!

Hi Richard! It’s great to have you here. We’ve met before in one of the SAM meetings, Lee introduced us. I also translated Lee’s book to Spanish, and we exchanged a few emails when I began with the translation. Hope to see you in one of our weekly SAM meetings. Have a great week!

Many people have told me the same thing. It’s just that you’re still not used to it, it’s “something new” for you. Try it several times, it’ll become easier and easier, and more and more natural. You’ll actually end up enjoying speaking.

Hi Gábor,
Holding the tone is an extremely useful Crutch, and that severe stutterers are finding really helpful.
Lee came upon this Crutch when thinking why can stutterers (or 99% of them) sing without stuttering? Because they focus on their tone instead of the words.
So how does this Crutch work? Well, lets start by holding the tone, like singers do when they do a “vibrato”, but let’s take the vibrato. If we do this, we have a clean tone coming out of our mouth: “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”. You can do that, right? Ok, let’s put words on that tone. “AaaaaMyNameisGábor”. As long a we don’t hesitate and interrumpt the tone, or airflow, we won’t stutter. But we can’t do this with long sentences or we’ll run out of air and we’ll get more nervous. We need to do it in short bursts.
It is like a combination of Crutches 4+10.

You can go to the video Sectionof this website, and do a filtered search: go to the “tags” and select “holding the tone”. You’ll find coaching sessions and you’ll see how we explain how it works. Hope this helps!