About the Therapist
The Speech Foundation, was founded in 1980 by Ajit Harisinghani – a Speech Therapist with a Bachelors’ degree in Speech Pathology and Audiology from The Bombay University, India (1971). A scholarship from the R.D. Sethna Trust in Mumbai enabled him to obtain a Masters’ degree in Speech Pathology and Audiology from Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois, U.S.A. (1973).
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His first professional work was as a public school speech pathologist with the Roane County School System in Spencer, West Virginia where he drove a large ‘Speech Clinic’ truck to cover speech pathology services for children of 5 county schools spread over the mountainous region. After a short stint in W.Va., Ajit headed for the big city – Chicago where he worked as an industrial worker and even a cab driver for the few months before his Ph.D. admission came through at the Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. However, just one semester at TTU convinced both Ajit and his advisors at the department that he was not really ideal Ph.D. material and both let each other go. |
Ajit traveled to Los Angeles via Las Vegas, where he lost his meager savings to the one-armed bandits in a casino – finally arriving in LA with just about 10 dollars and a friend. After another few months of un-employment-related stresses and self-doubts, he finally managed an appointment as a Speech Pathology Intern at the California State University, Northridge’s Speech Clinic. The CFY year followed with the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech Pathology from the American Speech and Hearing Association.
Almost immediately after obtaining this professional certification, Ajit with two of his American friends decided to travel around the world (on a shoe-string budget). Resignations from jobs, setting up a sale of everything that we weren’t taking with us, and such-like activities finally done and over with, we took off from lovely southern California and headed towards what became a 2-month trip zig-zagging across the USA and then one-year of travel around the world. Europe, India, Myanmar, Thailand, Hong-Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Japan. Experiences during this long trip took Ajit into many different cultures and these have, to a major degree, shaped his approach to his work.
In 1977, he came back to his roots in Bombay (now Mumbai) and spent the next 3 years developing speech and audiological services for the intellectually-impaired children at the Thackersey Center for Special Children in Sewri, Mumbai.
He moved to Pune (150 kms. from Mumbai) in 1980 and has been working mainly with young adults who have speech issues they need help with.
Professional Milestones passed along the way :
*M.S. (Speech Pathology & Audiology) Eastern Illinois University, USA. (1973)
* Speech Pathologist, Roane County Schools, W.Va.USA. (1973)
* Speech Pathology Intern, California State University, Northridge.(1975)
*Certified Clinically Competent in Speech Pathology by American Speech and Hearing Association (1976)
*K-12 Certification in Speech Pathology from California State Board of Education.(1976)
*Speech Pathologist with Thackersey Center for Special Children in Mumbai, India (1977-1980)
*Speech Pathologist with TDH (Germany) Rehab Center, Pune, India. (1980-1983)
*Speech Pathologist with Ministry of Health, Kuwait. (1983)
*Author, “How to Stop Stammering and Start Living” (1984)
Published by Popular Prakashan, Mumbai (two editions)
*Editor, “Speech and Hearing Newsletter” (1984-85)
Ajit Harisinghani writes about speech problems in various Indian and foreign journals and newspapers. He has talked on Stammering for DD, Zee TV and NDTV.
Recepient of:
R.D.Sethna Trust Scholarship, Mumbai. (1972)
Eastern Illinois University Scholarship. (1972 –73)
Ramabai Watumull Trust, Hawaii Special Award.
Prentke-Romich (USA) Award.
About My Approach to Therapy for Stammering:
Load-less travel on the road to fluency
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Having worked with young adults who stammer for over 25 years, chaperoning many up the slippery road to speech fluency, I, like many of my colleagues, have taken my cases through a gamut of therapies – many standard ones and some not so. I would like to share my current beliefs on how the condition may best be handled by the person who stammers. |
The problem with trying to overcome stammering is not so much in attaining increased speech fluency, as it is in maintaining and stabilizing the achieved change. Most cases show significant improvement during the initial phases of therapy but gradually lapse back into their old habit once the new-ness of the therapy practice wears off, and the initial euphoria abates.
To be able to speak fluently in any situation is a fantasy goal in the mind of the person who stammers. There is tremendous glamour attached to the attainment of speech fluency.
Such a point of view, although understandable, needs to be discouraged, since fantasies are thrilling and all thrills are emotionally de-stabilizing.
All our actions, including the act of speech, are neuro-muscular
in nature. The brain emits electro-chemical signals that travel through
the nerves and ‘order’ the required muscles to execute specific
movements. The smooth transmission of these electro-chemical impulses
signals can become disturbed when the mind is thrilled or excited. Stammering
is a condition which feeds on emotional upheavals (another name for
‘thrills’).
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Most persons who stammer are so desperate for fluency that they will do just about anything to get it. It is this very desperation that takes the goal farther away.
When someone who stammers says to me that he is ready to work very hard for fluency,my advise to him is to not use any will-power for fluency. He is encouraged not see his self-therapy as an endurance test.
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Good, fluent speakers are masters of timing. They know how to operate their speaking machine most effectively with the least effort. Their system ‘knows’ how to synchronize the flow of their thoughts; how to optimize breathing patterns so as to support a powerful delivery; how to easily move their tongue and lips to facilitate good articulation. Effective therapy to overcome stammering must focus on developing these skills.
That would involve a daily routine of practice with timing of delivery, pausing, loudness modulation, changing of mouth dynamics’, etc. Regularly, the person who stammers has to practice at honing this skill.
When his speech becomes fluent (as it often does with
this approach of ‘non-doing’), the person is encouraged
to take this success in his stride. He is encouraged not to jump with
joy every time he is fluent. He should try not to succumb to a feeling
of achievement. He has to de-glamorize his speech progress and take
it as an everyday, non-thrilling fact of life.
The stammering behaviour is thus denied the emotional sustenance it
needs to stay alive.
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Over the years, a person who stammers has inevitably devised many strategies to deal with his speech problem. Avoiding certain situations, replacing words which begin with ‘difficult’ sounds, etc. are typical. But now, as he begins to become more fluent, new psychological strategies need to be developed. Where once his ‘mind’ was engrossed in handling his stammered speech, the person now has to help himself develop a mind-set to deal with his newly acquired speech fluency.
'Speech is the mirror of the mind’ and a mind constantly concerned with not stammering will actually trip into dys-fluency more often.
The ultimate goal, really, would be to reach a state of mind which is not so desperately concerned with either stammering or not stammering. And this need not be an event set sometime far-away into the future. Enlightenment can happen in an instant!
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Case-History
Mohan, a 24 years old electronics engineer, has been
stammering ever since he can remember. The eldest son in his family,
Mohan had a bad time at school because his speech was the focus of many
unkind taunts from his classmates. As he entered college, he became
an emotional loner and his stammering became so severe that he could
not get even one smoothly spoken sentence out. "Answering questions
in class or even saying the word 'present' during roll call was an impossibly
difficult task" says Mohan, "I avoided speaking with anyone
new and clung to one or two chaps whom I'd known at school."
During his years at IIT, Mohan took control of his problem and practiced
at changing the manner of his speech. With some professional help and
regular self-therapy, he was able to develop fluency in most speech
situations.
If so inclined, you might like to read some of my ‘non-professional writing’:
* Highway to Heaven -- http://www.sulekha.com/articledesc.asp?cid=87363
* Prisoners of Our Own Device -- http://www.sulekha.com/articledesc.asp?cid=87368
* A Walk on the Wild Side -- http://beta.sulekha.com/travel/travelarticledesc.asp?cid=87370
* The First Time I Went To Jail -- http://www.sulekha.com/articledesc.asp?cid=87212
* Biker’s Bliss -- http://www.60kph.com/interact/age54.htm
* Pune to Khardung-La (A Solo Ride) -- http://www.royalenfield.com/theride_content.asp?ride_id=782
Some of my favourite books are:
1. Autobiography of a Yogi. by Yogananda Parmahansa
2. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
3. Believe it and you will see it. by Wayne Dyer
4. The Power of NOW. by Eckhart Tolle
5. Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance-by R. Pirsig
