Getting Good At The Sport Of Speaking
Television documentary about the McGuire Programme in Australia
We are the McGuire Programme. We aim to get you to go from out of control stuttering/stammering, to articulate, even eloquent, speech. Hence the title of the manual "Beyond Stammering". We approach this as any sports coach would deal with an athlete who wants to improve performance: First clean up the technique, then work on the mentality. A music or other performing arts teacher would do the same. With your stutter/stammer, we will provide you with techniques to counteract the physical areas of stuttering/stammering "blocks" as well as mental strategies to overcome, mainly, the fear and other negative emotions that impede any kind of competitive sport or performing art including articulate speech.
More important, we ALL (Founder, Regional Directors, Staff Trainers, Course instructors, and Personal Coaches) have been through the emotional trauma of stuttering/stammering. But we also KNOW, also from personal experience, what steps, physically and mentally, are required for major, long-term improvement. We won’t ask anyone to do what we are not prepared to do, and have done, ourselves. To REALLY overcome stuttering/stammering, takes a huge amount of hard work, courage and perseverance. So much so, that we offer a lifetime membership with virtually unlimited support for those with the DESIRE to take advantage of it.
For those truly motivated, our approach works IF you work. But don't just take our word for it ... on request, we can provide you with an extensive list of these members who would be happy to speak, by phone or Skype, with you, a friend or family member.
latest news
| It Is Time We Talked About This Mark Armstrong speaks out about stutter that almost rui... | 18 Oct 2011 |
| David Finds His Voice What do Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Marilyn Monroe ... | 01 Oct 2011 |
| Beethhoven helpt me om het leven te begrijpen Beethoven helps me to understand life | 22 Sep 2011 |
| Stotteraars over stotteren: hét boek met interviews en... Student Marloes de Jong over stotteren | 30 Aug 2011 |
| Upcoming Open Days Find out about the programme in a relaxed, informal mee... | 24 Aug 2011 |
Some facts about Stuttering
- 1% of the world is afflicted with stuttering, thats approximately 66 million worldwide.
- Despite decades of research, experts cannot determine the cause of stuttering. However, there is no proven link between childhood trauma or parenting.
- There is no known cure for stuttering. There are many therapies available but they require hard work and perserverance.
- Different people stutter to varying degrees. Some are more severe to the listener, overt stutterers, whereas others hide their stutter very well, these people are known as covert stutterers.
- Four times as many males are affected than females.
- Generally people do not stutter when they sing, whisper or speak in chorus.
- Although stuttering may seem like a relatively superficial problem, for the stutterer it can influence career choices, relationships and all aspects of daily speaking life.
- Many famous people have stuttered including Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe, Bruce Willis and , more recently, Gareth Gates. Gareth is now an instructor on the McGuire Programme.