Essential Speech Skills for School-Age Children Who Stutter
Working with Your Stuttering
Slide
A Slide is another strategy that can help you work with speech tension. It involves
catching yourself while you’re stuttering, holding the tension steady, and then slowly
and smoothly stretching out the transition between sounds as you say the rest of the
word. Using a Slide helps you get control of the stuttering, reduce tension, and keep
your speech moving forward.
It’s a little tricky, but you’ll get the hang of it.
You’ve already gotten a feel for what it’s like to
decrease tension in your speech by Relaxing the
Stutter. A Slide is similar. However, when you
do a Slide you don’t stop and repeat the word.
You catch yourself during the stutter and slide
out with a big relaxed stretch.
How to practice a Slide:
1. First you’ll use a Slide on words that you purposefully stutter on.
2. When you’re in the middle of the stutter, you’ll catch yourself, hold
your speech steady, and then slowly and smoothly stretch out the rest
of the word.
Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, you’ll practice the Slide with real stuttering
while you’re reading and talking. It’s important to remember that even after speech
therapy, there are going to be times when you stutter…and that’s totally fine.
It’s not a question of whether or not you will stutter:
It’s a question of what you can do when it happens.
One of the things you can do is Slide.
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Speak Freely © 2007 www.cfst.com
Essential Speech Skills for School-Age Children Who Stutter
Working with Your Stuttering
Listen to the model for each of the following words.
Then try doing a Slide on each one. Experiment with
using the Slide after stuttering in different ways
(for example: repetitions, prolongations, and blocks).
NOTES:
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rain
yellow
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night
eagle
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when
kind
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letter
peaceful
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Now make your own list of words, and practice using
the Slide with them.
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Speak Freely © 2007 www.cfst.com
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