My Story: How a Weird Little Device Changed Everything

Okay so. Here's the thing. I'm gonna tell you something kinda personal. Not because I'm some inspirational speaker type (definitely not lol) but because I think it might help someone out there who's in the same spot I was like... 15 years ago or something.

If you're reading this and you stutter, I see you. I was you. Actually, I still am you sometimes. But this is the story of how things changed for me.

The Background (Skip if You Want to Get to the Good Part)

So I'm from Poland. Small town-ish vibes, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone and if you do anything remotely embarrassing the whole neighborhood finds out by dinner time. Great place to be a kid with a stutter, right? 🙃

I was about to switch schools. You know how it is in Poland - you finish gimnazjum (middle school for the non-Polish folks) and then you go to liceum (high school). New school, new people, new everything. And I was absolutely TERRIFIED.

Because here's the thing about stuttering that people who don't stutter don't always get: the anticipation is sometimes worse than the actual stutter. You KNOW you're gonna have to introduce yourself. You KNOW everyone's gonna be looking at you. And you KNOW your brain is gonna pick that exact moment to completely betray you.

Enter: The Logopedist and Her Weird Machine

I was seeing a speech therapist - we call them logopedists in Poland - and she'd been helping me for a while with the usual stuff. Breathing exercises, easy onset, all that. Good stuff but I still felt like I was just... managing, you know?

Then one day she pulls out this thing. This absolute unit of a device. Old school. Probably from like the 90s or early 2000s. Had cables everywhere and looked like something you'd use to communicate with aliens or whatever.

"It's a DAF device," she said. "Delayed Audio Feedback. I want you to borrow it for the summer."

The Summer of Reading Aloud to Myself Like a Weirdo

So summer vacation starts and I've got this clunky device sittin on my desk. For the first few days I just... looked at it. Didn't want to try it. What if it didn't work? What if it was just another thing that doesn't help?

But then I figured, what the hell. Schools in like 2 months. I've got nothing to lose.

Put on the headphones. Turned it on. Started talking.

And HOLY CRAP. It was the weirdest sensation ever. Hearing my own voice but... wrong. Delayed. Like someone was echo-ing me but that someone was also me. Super trippy at first. My brain was like "what is HAPPENING right now."

But then... I noticed something. The words were coming out... smoother? Like, I wasn't blocking as much. The usual places where I'd get stuck, I just... didn't. At least not as bad.

The Practice (Boring But Important)

I started reading aloud every day. Just random stuff. Books, websites, even like ingredient lists from cereal boxes when I ran out of interesting things. 20-30 minutes, sometimes more when I got into it.

The thing about DAF is you gotta find your sweet spot. The delay that works for you. Mine was around 100-120ms if I remember right. Too short and nothing happened. Too long and I felt like I was underwater trying to talk.

Over the weeks something started to change. Not just when I was using the device but also... after? Like my brain was learning a new way to talk and it was starting to stick even when I took the headphones off.

I practiced introducing myself over and over. "Cześć, jestem Michał." Hello, I'm Michał. Again and again until it felt automatic.

The First Day

September comes. First day of liceum. New school, new people, I don't know anyone. Teacher goes around the room, everyone introducing themselves.

My turn is coming up. I can feel my heart doing that thing where it's like trying to escape my chest. Classic pre-stutter anxiety, you know it if you know it.

The person before me finishes. Everyone's looking at me.

I don't think anyone else in that room realized anything special had happened. To them I was just some random new kid saying his name. But for me?

That was everything.

Why I'm Telling You This

Look, I'm not gonna pretend that DAF magically cured my stutter forever. That's not how stuttering works, and if anyone tells you otherwise theyre selling something. I still stutter sometimes. Everyone who stutters does.

But that moment - being able to introduce myself on the first day of a new school without stuttering - that did something to my brain that went way beyond the speech mechanics. It made me believe, actually BELIEVE, that I could speak fluently. That it was possible. That I wasn't just forever broken or whatever I used to tell myself.

And that belief? That was probably the most important thing that happened in my whole stuttering journey. More important than any technique or exercise or therapy session. Just knowing that I COULD do it.

Why I Built EchX DAF

Fast forward a bunch of years. I'm a software developer now. And I kept thinking about that old clunky device my logopedist lent me. The one that probably cost like a thousand bucks or something ridiculous.

DAF technology isn't complicated. It's literally just a delay. Your phone can do it. Your browser can do it. So why are people still paying hundreds of dollars for dedicated devices?

So I built EchX DAF. Made it free. Put it on the web and on Android. Because I figured if there's some kid out there, maybe in Poland, maybe somewhere else, who's terrified of their first day of school... maybe this could help them too.

That's it. That's the whole story. Sorry if it got a bit ramble-y, I'm not a professional writer or anything. Just a guy who stutters (sometimes) and knows how much it sucks and wanted to do something about it.

If you're reading this and you're struggling - try the app. It's free. Practice over the summer. Or over winter break. Or just whenever. Find your sweet spot. Read aloud to yourself like a weirdo.

And maybe, just maybe, your first day will go exactly the way you want it to.

🇵🇱 Pozdrawiam! - Michał