'The King's Speech': Film as Therapy for Stutterers

Feb. 24, 2011— -- As Mia Pivirotto watched "The King's Speech" in the theater, she was on the verge of tears the entire time.

She isn't the only one to be moved by the film, which stars Colin Firth as King George VI and Geoffrey Rush as his speech therapist. It's been nominated for an Oscar for best picture.

For Pivirotto, 21, the movie offered a snapshot into what she's been trying to overcome her entire life: a stutter.

Pivirotto, an undergraduate, has even taken a year off from studying neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh to focus on fluency, or improving her stutter.

She creates video blogs to practice her speech and is constantly trying new techniques.

After she saw "The King's Speech," she decided to try something she saw in the film.

In one scene, the speech therapist puts headphones on the king and plays loud music to drown out the sound of his voice.

"It worked really well for me," Pivirotto said. "I wasn't worried about each word and how it sounded. I was just able to talk."

She explained that she stutters most when she thinks about her words too much.

"If I could just turn off that part of my brain, I'm pretty sure I'd be fluent," she said.

Since seeing "The King's Speech," Pivirotto has been practicing speaking with headphones on and is hoping it continues to improve her stutter.

Playing loud background music can also be a viable way to cope with stuttering.

According to LuAnn Yates, a Clinical Supervisor at the Hollins Communications Research Institute, in Roanoke, Va., the concept is similar to a technique she employs called "white noise masking."

"If I take a person and I put headphones on them and I turn the white noise up very loud and ask them to either speak or read, you will notice a marked change in their fluency," Yates said.

It's a technique she administers frequently at the Hollins Institute, a speech therapy center that has treated people such as broadcaster John Stossel and Annie Glenn, wife of astronaut John Glenn.