I started stuttering as far as my childhood memory can go back, first in my native language Mandarin Chinese and also later in English after I immigrated to the US at the age of 10. Speaking in front of the class and answering the telephone were the most stressful situations, and I spent my high school years virtually in silence, only uttering the words that I knew I could speak fluently. I tried countless speech therapy programs, hypnosis sessions, neuro-linguistic programming, delayed auditory feedback, and other stuttering treatment methods. Some offered brief relief, but none gave me the lasting fluency that I so desperately desired and aspired for.
All this changed after I read Mr. Lovett’s book Stuttering and Anxiety Self-Cures. The methods presented in his book were so intuitive and effective that they immediately resonated with me. I began practicing the various crutches explained in the book and incorporated them into my daily speech. The crutches that I found to be the most effective were linking words and syllables (“assistant” becomes “an assistant”), voice modulation (changing your voice to different registers to express different emotions) and extreme pronunciation (emphasizing certain words in the sentence). With time and practice, these methods almost completely eliminated my stuttering and significantly improved my fluency. The most exciting moments in my life were the times when I could order anything I wanted at Subway without substituting items and when I successfully answered a telephone call for the first time.
After overcoming stuttering and regaining my fluency, I put myself in as many speaking situations as I could to utilize my speech. I attended Toastmasters, improv classes, and social skills seminars to learn the basics of conversational and social skills. Soon I also started coaching those with social anxiety on their social skills from starting conversations to incorporating humor to making new friends. I’d never have thought in my severe stuttering days that I could ever become a coach for fluent speakers to improve their conversations! Looking back on my lifelong journey of overcoming stuttering, I’m proud of the progress I’ve made which took years of resilience and mental strength. More importantly, I’m extremely grateful for the stuttering cure that Mr. Lovett’s book has given me to change my life—and the lives of other stutterers around the world.
Dong, November 2025