My first pseudostuttering episode occurred with one of my close friends on March 27th at a local coffee shop. It was early in the morning and as one would expect, the shop was quite busy. This fact made me especially nervous as I wanted to ensure my pseudostuttering would be convincing to my friend, as well as to the people around me. Additionally, because the tables we were conversing at were in such close corridors, I was uneasy about how others who heard or saw my stuttering would potentially react. In my head, I was already thinking the possible responses I could get from them. Nevertheless, I anticipated that once I began exhibiting stuttering behaviors, conversing with my friend would gradually become easier. However, this was not the case and was largely in part due to the reactions I was getting from him. The core behaviors I used when talking to my friend included word and part-word repetitions and prolongations. To exacerbate my pseudostuttering, I made sure that my repetitions were tense and included at least three repetition units. In regards to secondary behaviors, I mainly used head nods, eye blinks, and interjections. As I was performing these aforementioned behaviors, I remember thinking to myself that I sounded dumb. It was frustrating because I was in the company of my friend who knows very well how fluent my speech actually is. It was also equally frustrating him as I gradually observed his initial reactions of amusement and surprise turn into …show more content…
Consequently, I feel that I was able to effectively model the behaviors of a true stutterer. Performing these behaviors while communicating with my listener was very difficult because she had a hard time understanding what I was saying. There was one instance where I was so invested in planning what I was going to say and how I was going to say it, that I lost my train of thought and had to rephrase my