American Institute-Stuttering

The American Institute-Stuttering is a truly remarkable place. You learn so many techniques and tools to learn how to control your vocal folds. If anyone is looking for a life changing experience and willing to work hard on their speech this is the place for you. more

I attended on July 2013, it's was a life changing experience. It's the begging for a much better communication... Totally worth it! more

The American Institute For Stuttering (AIS) has change my life in various ways. AIS has not only taught me numerous speaking tools, but I also learned to accept myself as a stutter, and feel comfortable in my own skin. I enrolled in the three-week intensive this past January, and it was a stupendous experience. Since the intensive, I am now able to communicate better with my family, friends, and peers in school. What I love about AIS the most is that it's not just an institute, it is a home. I view AIS as a home because it is a place where stutters meet individuals like themselves, and know that they are not alone. In addition, the staffs and clinicians there are willing to help anyone. I recommend this amazing institute to anyone that wants to work on bettering their speech. I never met Ms. Catherine, but, if I can say something to Ms. Catherine I would say “ Thanks for building stutters a home” <3. more

My experience at AIS was life changing for me. I attended The American Institute for Stuttering in 2000. There I learned how to accept myself for who I am and the extra benefits I received was how to control my voice. Controlling stuttering was hard at work at first, but then I built the tools I learned into my life. I now have the option to be fluent whenever I want to be and crazy enough to say that at times I want and choose to stutter freely. Its who I am. I now have confidence and am proud to be a person who stutters. Thank you Cathrine Montgomery again for your caring and help with me finding my voice and freedom. You will always be remembered. more

Based on experience, I can say that America Institute For Stuttering (AIS) has a well organised foundation that has benefited a lot of stutterers like myself. This institute was recommended to me by a great friend of mine and I gladly have no regret being a part of such a helpful place. AIS has a wonderful Three Week Intensive Therapy Program, Skype and regular day to day sessions. I took part in the Three Week Intensive Program and it was a life changing experience for me. This program is very affordable compared to the amount of help that I received. I enrolled in the program a few months ago and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is in need of speak modification. When I went to AIS I had fear written all over my face because of the way I stuttered badly, but it took three weeks for me to overcome my hardship. The various speech techniques that I learnt has helped me to become a more confident speaker who now has a fearless attitude. AIS is not only about teaching someone how to articulate words but also teaches the psychological aspect of stuttering. The psychological part of stuttering has to do with how a stuttering approaches a speaking situation. It has to do with what is going on in a person's mind, for example, the way how a stutterer perceives him/herself. So after learning these things, I now see myself equal to a fluent speaker and now feels free to talk in every situation. The AIS environment is also welcoming to all and most importantly the speech pathologists are very cooperative and are professionals in what they do. Finally, I would like to say AIS has change the lives of many people and I deeply recommend this remarkable institute to everyone. more

I don't know if I agree with everything written here about the Founder of AIS but I did have one experience with Total Immersion Fluency Training (TIFT). I had expected to get the same PFSP program that I took with her and when I went to TIFT I got a very modified version of PFSP that gave me less fluency than I had with PFSP and left very disheartened and cheated. She also had an associate who had no speech therapy training but was supposed to be a ""body man"" as she described him who knew all about the body and and had cured himself of cancer in every part of his body. I thought at the time this person to be lying and could not understand why the AIS founder would even have a person like this at her therapy clinic. My opinion of the Founder was that she was a very childish person who was easily influenced by people and their claims and was very unprofessional and did not appreciate the fact that she should not take advantage of her license as a speech therapist and experiment with customers but provide a product that worked She believed in past lives at the time and told me that her associate was her brother in a past life!! more

Do not go here, this """"Institute"" does not offer a real stuttering program. The American Institute of Stuttering (AIS) was founded by someone who originally worked for (Professor/Dr.) Ronald Webster of the Hollins Communications Institute in Virginia,a real Institute associated with a University, AIS occupies a few rooms on one floor in downtown Manhattan. The Founder of AIS delivered the Precision Fluency Shaping Program (PFSP) for Ronald Webster in NYC for approx. 8 years until Dr. Webster determined she wasn't delivering it correctly and he fired her. I went to the NYC PFSP in the 80's and knew her. And went back there several times for refreshers. My experience was that she never understood Dr. Webster's stuttering program, she probably never delivered it correctly and she probably was never really interested to deliver it correctly. She was too heavily influenced by her experiences at the Option Institute in Mass. that she heavily attended. The Option Insitute is has a cult like environment led by a charasmatic leader who provides advice on how to be happy and successful using such techniques as ""don't judge yourself or others"" which you are supposed to do constantly all day long (how practical is that?). With respect to her and Dr. Webster, she was fired as I said and she then started the Total Immersion Fluency Program (a rather bold title don't you think?) using the same information and technique provided by the PFSP without the feedback computer to judge your voice and using this same material in new manuals with her name on it. I took this program and she told me before I came that it was all new material!! She had dropped one PFSP speech target and I trusted her and then I walked around stuttering out of control until I put it back in and then my speech improved. She then continued to change the PFSP program until it was called the American Institute for Stuttering. Our Founder seems to think that she has the ""option"" to change the speech program she delivers for approx. $4,000 and experiment with people who are hoping to have control over their speech as often as she wants. The American Institute for Stuttering program is yet one more program that the Founder came up with that does not work. But AIS has a board of famous people who stutter whose speech problem was mild in the first place (obviously) who you think is active in the AIS stuttering program providing tips and such but they are not, they are just on the Board for show. The AIS program is a buffet of all and any techniques for stuttering determined over the past 100 years including a small part of the Hollins program (hey, what the heck!). AIS is actually guilty of false advertising indirectly since one of course assumes that either the people on the Board took one of her programs or that they use techniques that are in the AIS program or that YOU will be able to eventually talk like them. This is not true. One major part of the AIS program is heavy use of Option techniques to reduce the nervousness associated with stuttering. Their effectiveness is questionable. The AIS program is actually a glorification of the Founders personal experiences at the Option Institute where now SHE is the guru of HER Institute. People believe she is wonderful because they believe she has the right idea that stuttering cannot be cured or really controlled and that she is wonderful enough to know that and tell them that which is not exactly true. People love her because she doesn't make them do the unfortunate tuff work which one has to do to control stuttering (which the people on the Board must have done) and gives them recognition for their stuttering problem and ""emotional"" support for the problem. AIS is a mini Option Institute and monument to the Founder of AIS who had an uncanny knack for charming people of all backgrounds and professions to do things for her like be on her board. The main stuttering technique is RANDOM FLUENCY MANAGEMENT. Go to Hollins and work hard more