Initial years of my life were like a ship on calm waters. Things were as they should be for a small boy. It was just perfect with all the toys, the excitement, the funny noises and the bright colors. I hardly remember any hustle & bustle. Of course, there were times when people would scamper towards me, they would rush, push, pull and what not, all to get glimpse of me. Most of them never returned, though. They were blinded by my aura, I guess.
As I grew up, I sensed people never really understood me. So, I stopped talking altogether, thinking they were dumb. This was a terrible mistake. I even went on to think, rather egotistically -a person can only come down to a certain extent but the people down below must try hard to come up. Before I could even rethink, I was struck dumb, literally. ‘Speech –impaired’, so to say. A storm had finally caught up with the big small ship.
My condition, back in the days was thought to be hereditary, caused by some genetic disorders. But the medical community is yet to find anything, supporting the arguments. Later on, I was diagnosed with selective mutism and with help I somehow managed to speak. Although it was good news, for a child who could speak five languages, this was an apocalypse of sorts for my talk was stammered. This posed a very serious problem. I was made to think that there was nothing one could do about it. One simply had to accept it and live with it. I was rattled to the core. The experience, though, spelled the dawn of a completely different person. I was determined more than ever to find a way out of this and I did!
I knew that the speech of a person who stammers becomes more fluent when alterations are made to the speaking environment. When somebody speaks, it is important that the speaker is hearing his own voice. A part of the uttered speech reaches his ear through the air and some through the bones which is perceived by the brain. The brain then initiates the production of the next word based on whether the perceived sound was intended to be sounded. In high noise levels the speaker has to increase his voice level if he has to hear his own voice. This suggests that there is a inherent Negative - feedback - mechanism.
The Negative feedback helps the brain to decide whether the next word is to be initiated or not. If proper feedback is not received then the brain thinks(!) that the previous word was not produced and initiates the production of the same word, causing the S-tut-tut-ter. So the solution was clearly at plain sight - all one had to do was simply reproduce the sound after a suitable delay very close to the ears. The delay can be decreased from a large value to a small value to achieve the required speeds of normal speech.
Ingenious huh!
Well, to tell the truth I did not feel like using the device. I also abstained from getting a patent for myself. I felt it will be really selfish of me. It was after all, a solution given by Nature herself. In fact, it would not only be selfish of me but also hypocritical.
Now, as I am getting older, I have come to accept that it was the work of Nature. I can sense a higher purpose - which made me s-tut-tut-ter. It was undoubtedly - Nature! that kept me going, staying by my side every step of my way acting as the guiding force, helping the ship back into calm waters.
Indeed, Nature has a peculiar nature.
I also devised an autonomous robot -The Surgical Man, I like to call him, which was programmed to correct the defect in my Middle Ear, which was fooling my brain and making me stutter. This gave a permanent solution to the problem and in no time I resumed my normal impeccable articulation.
