Stuttering...

noiseboy72

Anyone here know much about stuttering and if it can affect other things as well?

My wife's a music teacher and one of her students has a very pronounced stutter. When he plays the piano, his playing is equally disjointed. He starts and stops, re-plays the last few notes, plays again then stops again. This is very similar to his stutter.

Learned behaviour or a defined neurological link??

All armchair neurologists welcome

Leo31291

I have a noticeable stutter.

How long has she teached him ? He might just be nervous and uncomfortable around new people. Social anxiety making him self aware of his actions and making himself jittery if that makes sense.

There's no correlation between having a stammer and it affecting the body's muscle control.

noiseboy72

She's taught him for about 10 months. He's 14 and has lessons at our in home in her teaching studio. Probably one of the least threatening places to be and she's very good with the kids, her youngest students are about 4 and her oldest 86!

She uses a variety of techniques and giving him a simple exercise like bouncing a ball in time to a beat or clapping a rhythm he does quite well. It seems to be when he needs to use both hands to play a piece of music it starts to fall apart.

It's not something she's come across before. She has around 65 students a week and has taught probably hundreds over the years, but this lad she is struggling to make much progress with.

IronGiant

Maybe there's more going on with the poor lad than his stutter?

noiseboy72

Quite possibly.
I think my wife would like to know if there's any different strategies she can use to help him. She never likes a disability to prevent her students from making progress with their studies!

reiteration

I've got a stutter too, but it's more or less in control now - used to be a nightmare when I was young, tho I seemed to have blocked it out of my memory and can only recall a few incidents when it was bad...

I went to speech therapy when I was around 5ish year old... then as a teen I had an operation as I was tongue tied (couldn't stick my tongue out further than my lips..) - not sure if this had an affect (or why I had the operation done now..) - but immediately after the operation my mum noticed my speech was more clear, tho I soon slipped back into my old habits..

tip - I learned to speak more slowly which helped a bit..

Leo31291

Your motor functions were fine though right ?

reiteration

yep, nothing like what the student is suffering..