![]() These laryngeal blocks, however, can be avoided by his Passive Airflow Technique, which aims at preventing the block by: 1) Slowing the first syllable or syllables 2) emitting a very slight, passive flow of air which should slip from the mouth before speaking, so as to open the vocal folds. According to him, stuttering is caused by stress-induced vocal-fold blocking. The initial workshop lasted for three days, and a large part was aimed at explaining Dr Schwartz's view of stuttering. It would be such a shame if, when Dr Schwartz and his institute are no longer around, his ideas disappear from the stuttering scene. ![]() Even though he has retired I thought that I should write this as it may help others. My experiences: Sadly Dr Schwartz has retired and no longer conducts workshops, though his course is still provided in CD format as self-help treatment. Two refresher workshops some years afterwards. Within a half-year post-therapy, I decided that the program was of no further use to me.Ĭourse done: Initial intensive workshop in January 1981 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Those exercises were always very fluent, but my “real-life” speech was not. Schwartz’s office each week as required, with my exercises. My speech completely collapsed, and my stuttering became worse than it had been before therapy.ĭuring the succeeding months, back in Chicago, I tried to resume progress with the airflow technique, but I just couldn’t achieve the same success that I had before. Three months post-therapy, I rushed back to Massachusetts to attend the funeral of a close relative. Ten weeks post-therapy, I was able to speak fluently in about a third of my situations, and had improved speech (reduced disfluency) in another third of my situations.īut then disaster struck. A month later I returned to Chicago for graduate studies, and my speech progress continued. But I practiced the assigned exercises daily, and slowly I improved. I returned home to Massachusetts very disfluent. Schwartz’s clinic, but not outside his clinic. The other two clients had much more success than I did, in practicing their new technique on the streets of Manhattan and inside shops.įor the rest of the week, I could use the airflow method whenever I was inside Dr. Schwartz selected, and maintained our fluency.īut outside his clinic, my new amazing technique just didn’t work. We even made some phone calls from his office to random businesses that Dr. Schwartz’s office for the rest of the day. “This is so amazing! I have been stuttering for 20 years, and now I’m totally cured in just a matter of minutes!” I didn’t actually say those words, but I sure felt them! “Such a simple technique – I wish I had known of this 20 years ago!” Schwartz had taught us (within 30 seconds). Within 3 minutes, ALL of us were talking ABSOLUTELY fluently using the simple airflow method that Dr. ![]() ![]() Schwartz first heard us all speak (and stutter) briefly, and then issued his opinion: “Pieces of cake! You’re all pieces of cake.” He told us that treating us would be very easy. ![]() My stuttering was very severe, but one of the other clients had stuttering even worse than mine. Two others took the program at the same time as I did. Some months earlier I had attended a fluency program in Chicago that had left me with a profoundly negative impression, and I was really eager to try something else to lift my dampened spirits. I had become excited after reading his 1976 book Stuttering Solved, and hearing about his appearance on national TV. I attended Martin Schwartz’s week-long airflow program in Manhattan during the summer of 1977. ![]()
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