Susan just finished the January 2010 intensive program last week. She sent us this great story about her trip back to Indiana:
I thought you’d like to hear something funny I did yesterday in the airport. I had a long delay in Newark and then a 3-hour layover in Chicago, so I pulled out my stuttering surveys! I surveyed a whole bunch of people, and it was actually way more fun than just sitting there. I got some nice compliments on my speech, too.
Part of the reason I did this was because I wanted to prove to myself that my speech tools worked outside of NY, and they did! They worked in New Jersey and then in Chicago. It was a good way to build up a number of positive experiences for myself. On the Challenge Scale, this ranked even higher than the Subway Challenge because I had to actually approach people directly in a place where people aren’t particularly thrilled to be, and introducing myself to other people is one of the hardest things for me. (more…)
This Monday’s meeting of our kids’ stuttering therapy group was the best one yet. Carl talks about an activity that helped the kids reveal deep-seated feelings about their stuttering.
And here’s a still picture of the whiteboards and the speech lobster (click to zoom):
At the beginning of an intensive stuttering therapy program, we have each client draw what their stuttering, like a representation of it or how it makes them feel. Then at the end of the three-week program, we have them draw their stuttering again. It’s like a before and after insight into how our clients view their stuttering.
Here are the drawings from the January intensive program group.
Stage and screen actor James Earl Jones is widely known as the voice of film icons Darth Vader (Star Wars) and Mufasa (The Lion King). However, for 10 years in his childhood, that now-legendary voice was not heard by anyone at all.
From the ages of 5 to 14, Jones refused to speak due to his severe stutter. A high school English teacher encouraged him to finally take up speaking again. And of course, it was his voice and speech that carried him to the illustrious career that he enjoys today.
Here is a recent CNN interview with James Earl Jones where he addresses his childhood stuttering and looks back on his career (he talks about his childhood stuttering at 2:47 in the embedded video below).
Rose is taking the January intensive stuttering therapy program that is running right now. Here are Rose and Carl talking about the stuttering modification strategies that she learned during the first week of the program.
Sujini is a speech-language pathologist working toward becoming a Board-Recognized Specialist in Fluency Disorders (BRS-FD). Chamonix, a BRS-FD herself and a member of the Specialty Board that oversees the whole process of board recognition, recently interviewed Sujini.
On Monday, I did an inservice at the Episcopal School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Char, a past client, is a teacher there. This was my second opportunity to speak about stuttering with the teachers at a preschool and I hope to do it much more.
During the inservice, my goal was, first and foremost, to help them understand that stuttering is not “just a phase” for every child. We discussed that the majority of children who stutter during the preschool ages may outgrow the stuttering, but that some won’t. We talked about factors that may put kids more at risk and how to best interact with a child when he/she is stuttering in their classroom. We talked about the difference between stuttering and stammering (there is no difference!). (more…)
