If you have a child who stutters between the ages of 8 and 18, or know someone who does, here’s a great summer camp option only 90 minutes from New York City. Camp Our Time is a sleep-away performing arts camp for kids who stutter, their young family members, and friends. Camp takes place at Iroquois Springs in Rock Hill, New York. For those with financial need, scholarships may be available. To learn more, visit their website, send them an email, or call them at (212) 414-9696.
Our Time Theatre Company is run by Taro Alexander, a very good friend of AIS. The company is comprised of young people who stutter ages 8-18, who study acting, singing, playwriting, drumming, and dance with professional artists. Like AIS, Our Time is a non-profit organization. As such, they offer this artistic experience free of charge. Exercising these skills, the company members create original plays and music which they perform in New York City and around the world.
Here’s a fantastic video that demonstrates the internal workings of normal diaphragmatic breathing. I have been showing this to clients recently during sessions when we cover diaphragmatic breathing, and it has been a big hit!
Also, here is another video with color-coordinated detail of the diaphragm, lungs, intercostal muscles, and surrounding organs (and also features funky music).
Although stuttering is not caused by a breathing problem, our breath is the fuel that runs our voice or vocal folds. Proper coordination of the breath with the vocal fold vibrations is something that can greatly assist in fluent speech production. The breath can also become uncoordinated, and abnormal breathing patterns can be formed as a result of stuttering and the closure and tension in the vocal folds.
In therapy, clients learn what normal diaphragmatic breathing is and how to internally feel this within their bodies. This video can help clients to see and understand what is occurring which will help them to feel and visualize their own diaphragms. Diaphragmatic breathing is also something that helps to reduce the adrenaline or “fight or flight” response as well as aid in overall relaxation.
Have you used breathing techniques to treat your stuttering? Did they help at all?
Roisin again shares her thoughts on stuttering as she continues therapy at the American Institute for Stuttering. This time, she talks about demanding respect from others and from herself.
We’ve talked about our 3rd Annual Benefit Gala that was held on June 8 and how wonderful it was. Until now, you had to take our word on it without any evidence. Well, at last, we have photographic evidence to support that claim.
We hope that you enjoy these pictures from the gala.
The whirlwind summer at AIS continues! In June, we ran from the Benefit Gala to an intensive program. Then, after the June intensive program ended, we jumped right into the July program.
We’re in week 2 of the July program now, and the group has bonded as usual. We look forward to getting to know them better and sharing some video with you.
We have a good amount of content to catch you up on: pictures and video from the gala, excursions from the June program, and more encouraging client stories. Now, we just need to find the time to catch our breath and post it all!
To mark the start of the National Stuttering Association Annual Conference, current AIS intern John talks about the NSA conferences that he’s attended.
