A self-help group is helping stammerers to cope with the disorder and learn ways to rectify speech-related problems.
It was not an easy childhood for 35-year-old Rajkumar Samal who has been stammering since birth. His speech problem restricted him from making friends or speaking to people around him. However, for the last six months, Samal, who is now working as an administrative officer in a city-based firm, is brimming with confidence. He enjoys interacting with people, making friends and is much more confident while dealing with people.
Samal attributes this change to the Stammering Association of India’s Mumbai chapter. He is among the handful few members who joined this self-help group which began functioning six months back.
Stammering, which is literally the inability of a person to speak in a typically fluent manner, is a disorder which affects many people worldwide. A stammerer knows precisely what he wants to say but cannot, for the moment, say it because of an involuntary repetition, prolongation or cessation of the speech sound.
“I have been stammering since childhood but while in standard XI, it was at its worst stage. I was even hesitant to answer my roll call in class,” says 28-year-old law graduate Ashish Acharya, who has currently been short listed for the post of a legal manager of a well-known city bank. Acharya joined the Stammering Association of India four months back in an effort to bond with people facing similar disorder and find ways to overcome the problem.
A complete self-help group, the group is not a registered body but comprises a handful of members at the moment who meet once a month to discuss the dilemmas they face in their day to day life due to stammering. There is no membership fee and the main aim of the group is to provide a platform to its members to share their past experiences, device techniques that will help them tackle the problem and share tips in speech therapy.
A case in point being 26-year-old Vikas Bindal who left his corporate job to pursue an MBA degree in Singapore. “I wanted exposure to strengthen my confidence. Making presentations and public speaking were part of his course. I got into the habit of recording the presentations and hearing them out later to improvise.
Apart from gaining exposure I also discovered myself, recognised the weak areas and worked upon them accordingly,” he shares.
The members now plan to approach schools in a bid to make the teachers realise that stammering needs to be tackled sensitively and help children overcome the problem from an early age.
Contact: tisa.mumbai@gmail.com
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