"The King's Speech" Raises Awareness in Connecticut

The Academy Award-winning film The King’s Speech has raised awareness around the nation, and locally, about overcoming speech fluency problems.

 In the film, speech therapist Lionel Logue, played by Geoffrey Rush, isolates social and emotional components that caused King George VI, played by Colin Firth, to stutter. With enough training and practice, the king delivers a fluid speech about England going to war with Germany, broadcast to millions of people across the world.

Dianne Lester, speech pathologist for Avon Public Schools, the Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain and Masonicare Partners Home Health and Hospice in East Hartford, has recommended it to all of her students who have stutters.

“Being a stutterer, their take on the movie was interesting and very thought-provoking in that they could identify with someone who was very powerful,” Lester wrote in an e-mail to Patch. “In the public school arena the increase [in patients since the movie came out] has not been significant, however some of my colleagues in private practice and clinical settings have noted that many adults have inquired about service options [since then].”

Judy Rosenfield, speech pathologist at Wait Your Turn LLC in Avon, said that the film accurately portrays the connection between emotion and speech.

“I would not necessarily say that I have been getting more fluency or social anxiety cases than usual since the movie came out,” Rosenfield said, “though I would definitely say that there is a heightened public awareness regarding the emotional impact of a speech impediment, and to the value of speech therapy services. The emotional part of [the king’s] life [in the film] is so much a part of his speech training. I loved how he was able to get the speech done without anyone in the room. It took getting the attention totally off him.”

In her work, she tries to identify what most triggers stutters, or speech fluidity challenges, such as whether a patient struggles more with an individual sound, word or topic. In some cases, patients may stutter when an emotional charge in the conversation inhibits them.

“Almost always, when the attention is on them, it is worse. It gets worse the more intimidating [another individual’s] personality is,” Rosenfield said.

That was the case for 25-year-old tech services worker Sean Finnegan. He came to Rosenfield to improve his communication skills for work.

Rosenfield said that after one of his acquaintances suggested that he needed speech therapy, "he was so afraid that every time he spoke to" that individual, the person "was going to be judging him."

She told Finnegan not to think of the suggestion to go to speech therapy as a judgment, but rather as an effort to help him.

Rosenfield ultimately aims to teach patients (and their parents if she is working with children) how to incorporate training into everyday life in order to allow them to independently work on communication.

“What I love about the role of the speech pathologist [in The King’s Speech] is that he’s definitely portrayed as a coach more than anything,” Rosenfield said. “I think that’s what it’s all about.”

Finnegan continues to work on his speech while using a “delayed auditory feedback” software program at home.

“I actually found this technique to be extremely helpful and found the software for it on-line and now use it to practice with at home,” Finnegan wrote in an e-mail.

When delayed audio feedback is played through headphones, the speaker tends to speak more slowly  and enunciate in order to hear himself over the slower sounds. The technique is more commonly used for adults with stutters.

Similarly, in The King’s Speech, the speech therapist has King George VI record a speech while wearing headphones blasting music, blocking out the sound of his own voice so that he does not worry about how he sounds when he talks.

Rosenfield has given Finnegan several other exercises to keep in mind while talking.

“We developed several strategies for me to use such as trying to elongate my vowel sounds, increasing my breath support and trying to build the habit of self-monitoring when my speech gets worse,” Finnegan wrote to Patch.

Ultimately, Finnegan said that patience is important in overcoming speech fluidity challenges.

“Just keep in mind that while, yes, it is a problem, it is one that can be overcome,” Finnegan wrote. “The hardest part is breaking old bad habits and forming new ones, but with patience and practice you can do it. The important thing is to not get discouraged by those times you fall back into old patterns, but to keep focused on your goals.”

Rosenfield taught another patient, a customer service representative, to speak in a sing-song voice when she communicated with customers. The patient had previously struggled with pronouncing the company name, which prevented her from getting much further in her phone conversations with clients. Similarly, the speech therapist in The King’s Speech told Firth’s character to sing his words when he got stuck, and the king did not stutter when he sang.

“People who are stuttering don’t stutter when they sing,” Rosenfield said. “Singing is right brain and speaking is left ... What’s useful often is tapping with the hand. It goes along with the same theory of singing. It’s talking on a melody.”

The old “pretend the audience is in their underwear” trick may work in helping people who stutter because social anxiety is often a component of speech fluidity impairments, according to Rosenfield.

 “It lightens up their mood of being so afraid of what is going to come out of their mouths,” Rosenfield said.

 A 32-year-old Avon resident came to Rosenfield, nervous about speaking in front of a group, and Rosenfield has taught her how to tell stories more clearly by speaking in shorter and more precise sentences. She had her watch YouTube videos and observe various forms of non-verbal communication that accompany speech, as well as changes in tone. The patient also did mock job interviews with Rosenfield.

With adults, Rosenfield focuses on the context of what gives them the most trouble with speaking and social interaction to “get them to constantly work on this and really make a difference in their life.”

When working with teenagers, Rosenfield emphasizes peer interaction and improving small talk skills because that is an age group that is highly concerned with fitting in. Lester said that with students speech therapy is much more connected to academics, and Rosenfield said that she tries to mix grammar lessons with social interaction when working with children to optimize their social and communicative skills early on.

David Seidel, a man who once struggled with a stutter, wrote the script for The King’s Speech and gave his own speech without hesitation when accepting his Best Original Screenplay award at the Oscars. Firth also won Best Actor for his role in the film.

 “I have encouraged many of my patients to see the movie so that they can, like the king, be inspired to overcome their social challenges,” Rosenfield said.