PAUL HILL Since the age of three, Heidi King has lived with a severe stammer. But an experimental treatment in New York offered her hope that technology could help reduce - but not cure the condition.

PAUL HILL

Since the age of three, Heidi King has lived with a severe stammer. But an experimental treatment in New York offered her hope that technology could help reduce - but not cure the condition. Paul Hill reports.

A voice chirrups in Heidi King's ear whenever she speaks, echoing every word and sound.

“It's my little man,” she says, taking a tiny pink plastic device from her ear.

The device is an experimental treatment for stammering which tricks the brain into thinking that the speaker is talking in unison with another voice.

The device exploits the “choral effect” - the phenomenon first identified in the 1950s which sees people who stammer speak clearly when talking or singing in unison with someone else.

Getting fitted with the device - and learning to live with it - has taken Heidi, 25, on a remarkable journey.

The EDP first told her story in March.

Heidi, from Norwich, had just signed up for the “SpeechEasy” treatment in New York and - as the device is not available on the NHS - was looking for help to meet the cost of both her transAtlantic trip and consultations with an American speech therapist.

The device did not offer hope of a cure.

But it offered Heid the chance to reduce the severe stammer she has lived with since the age of three - stammering on every third syllable and, at times, finding speech an exhausting effort.

In talking to the EDP - then agreeing to go before the television cameras and face the national Press - Heidi also seized the opportunity to raise the public profile of a condition which one in 100 people in the UK suffer, all too often in silence.

With a first class degree and a determination to not let her speech impediment hold her back, Heidi's message was simple.

Listen to what I say, not how I say it.

Six months on, Heidi's story is set to be told in a BBC television programme on Monday.

As she told readers of her EDP24 blog - or internet diary - at the time, the trip to New York had an immediate effect.

As soon as her American speech therapist, John Haskell, fitted the device, she spoke without a stammer for more than 15 minutes.

It reduced her to tears - both of joy and fear of the unknown.

A few days later, she joked that people were beginning to notice that - as a Billericay-born girl - she has an Essex accent.

Before her trip, Heidi stammered in 34pc of her syllables. On returning home after three weeks in New York, her Norfolk speech therapist, Mary Kingston, measured her stammer at 4.4pc of syllables.

While not curing the stammer, the device has reduced the sheer physical effort of talking, allowing Heidi to practice the traditional speech therapy techniques she learned in childhood.

“Growing up, I never saw myself as being different,” Heidi said.

“My mum and dad and sister didn't see me as any different either - I was just me.

“That's the strange thing, looking back, I don't remember stammering as a child. I know I did and it must have had an impact - I went to speech therapy each week and I didn't ever want to stand up in class and I dreaded answering the register as it took me longer than anyone else. But I had a happy childhood.”

Was she bullied or teased at school?

“One or two times in my school life I was teased, but the teachers made a big example of the people who did it. No-one else dared.

“I asked my speech therapist about it, and she said that beyond a certain level of speech dysfluency, children are likely to see it as a disability that can't be helped, so they don't make an issue of it."

Heidi's teenage years saw her attend summer courses at the Michael Palin Centre in London - part of which saw her reflect on how stammering affected how she saw herself and how stammering affected her behaviour.

Between taking her A-levels and beginning studies for a degree in psychology at the University of Kent at Canterbury, she travelled - but not for the usual student "gap" year backpacking across the world..

"I worked in a special needs school in Cape Town for six months," she said.

"I didn't want to go to Australia or America - I wanted a different kind of experience, I wanted to be stretched.

"I learned so much, one of the children in my class was dying and had little time left. I grew up so quickly."

Taking her undergraduate degree at Canterbury, Heidi then signed up for doctoral studies in clinical psychology at UEA. This year she took a break from her studies to work on a carers' project at Age Concern Norfolk. She plans to return to UEA to complete her doctorate this autumn.

"I used to have my future all mapped out," she said.

"Now I know that life can throw you the odd curve ball.

"I'll take my chances and go where life takes me.

"I just hope that I'll be happy and healthy and I hope to travel some more. I know it sounds corny, but I want to make a difference."

What she doesn't realise is that she already has.

Watch Heidi's story on BBC1's Inside Out programme on Monday at 7.30pm.