A long-term study shows that with the help of Kassel Stuttering Therapy, about 70 percent of participants are able to speak fluently in the long term. In this therapy, patients gain speech control through new speech patterns. Breathing, voice and articulation train them to what is known as soft speech. The therapy, a three-week intensive course, is aimed at adolescents and adults and is accompanied by a computer program.
Learning control
Control is the magic word of all speech therapies for stutterers. In Kassel Stuttering Therapy, patients gain speech control through new speech patterns. Breathing, voice and articulation train them to speak in what is known as soft speech. At the same time, they learn to break old behavioral patterns: namely, stutterers avoid situations in which they might stutter. By actively shaping and controlling what they say, they replace the unpleasant experience of failure and helplessness.
After all, patients are supposed to prove their confidence in their new speaking ability in an emergency. After their three-week intensive on-site therapy, they have to ask for directions in the city, for example – a situation that stutterers normally avoid. Parallel to the therapy, the patients check their voice use with a computer learning program.
Lasting success
A long-term study by Professor Harald Euler of the Department of Psychology at the University of Kassel has shown that, especially in the long term, speech disorders can be remedied with the Kassel Stuttering Therapy. Around 450 affected people between the ages of twelve and 65 took part in the study. More than 70 percent of the patients were able to speak more fluently than before. They had to prove their ability to speak in various situations, for example in an interview with a passerby or when talking on the phone.
Before therapy, the patients stuttered at about twelve percent of the syllables spoken; immediately after therapy, they stuttered at an average of one to two percent of the syllables. Over the longer term, the average stuttering rate has leveled off at three to four percent. The three percent limit is considered an inconspicuous level because even nonstutterers occasionally show speech blocking.
Brain activity altered in stutterers
Stuttering is likely a neurological defect, according to several studies. Parts of the left hemisphere of the brain may be altered in people who stutter throughout their lives. Doctors at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf found that connections between brain regions responsible for speech appear to be disrupted in stutterers. The nerve connections between the centers in the left hemisphere of the brain responsible for planning and those responsible for executing speech are defective.
Therefore, the brain areas that control the correct interaction of the tongue, pharynx and vocal cords react with a delay. In parallel to Professor Euler’s long-term study, the Frankfurt University Clinic, in cooperation with the Institute of the Kassel Stuttering Therapy and the University of Kassel, has been investigating the brain activity of people who stutter and the changes after therapy over the past three years.
Nine clients were examined before the start of therapy and one year and two years later with magnetic resonance imaging, which provides images of activated brain regions. One finding is that the disturbances in the left hemisphere of the brain demonstrated in stutterers are compensated for by neighboring brain regions being more strongly activated after therapy. Whether the costs for Kassel Stuttering Therapy are covered by statutory health insurance depends on the individual case.
