This morning I listened to an Emily Blunt interview on the Howard Stern show, and it was interesting to hear her discuss her stuttering. Emily said she started stuttering at age 7, and she couldn’t get a handle on it until she began acting at age 12. Many people know that rhythm and melody improve fluency, but she talked about the psychological side in regard to becoming a character. She described acting as a “removal of self from yourself,” and how that idea helped her stuttering. To me it sounded like Emily gained confidence by acting like someone else, and was thus more comfortable being someone else than being herself. Emily went on to say that people on the street have influenced how she played a role. For example, when Emily was doing ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, she said the following line that she saw a mom yell at her child (and do a gesture of an open hand closing), “I’m hearing this and I wanna hear this.”

As an SLP, I think it’s interesting to think about how these ideas could be implemented in stuttering treatment. One possible activity could involve role playing a movie character or a cartoon character. The student who stutters could speak the lines of a beloved character while the SLP and/or other students in the group speak other character lines. That way the student can play the character with confidence, which will hopefully improve the student’s fluency. Nowadays, it’s relatively simple to Google a desired script or to YouTube a desired scene. So, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find the lines to speak for your activity.