AIS client Derek faced his fears and 300 curious and supportive listeners when he stepped up to the podium at last year’s gala. Here is his inspiring speech.
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Hi,
Nice to see that he looked at the audience more often than the other people whose blog videos appear here.
Still, I don’t understand why he had to have the speech written down and had to look at it as often as he did since he spoke from the heart there would be no need to write down this kind of speech. Maybe what someone said one time is true, “people talk the most about things they don’t have”.
I don’t know, could someone at AIS explain why people mostly read their speeches I think I have asked this before and maybe others have also but no one at AIS seems to want to answer this question.
Anyway he did a good job but I would like to see a video of him giving a speech at another place than AIS but I don’t think that would be possible.
Well hope to have this question answered but it is alright if you don’t. You must have your reasons.
Steven
Comment by steven Chen — August 29, 2010 @ 6:04 pm
Steven,
Thanks for commenting.
Its not that we don’t want to answer your questions. There’s just a lot of them. It takes time to give you a thoughtful response. Especially when one comment includes 3, 4, 5, or more questions. Please know that we spend countless hours every day working face to face with people who stutter. This blog is very, very important to us as a staff, but it takes time to respond sometimes. I wish it were different.
We did not post this video so that people could analyze his fluency, or the quality of his delivery. We posted this so that people could have an inside look at one of the speeches given at our gala last year. I don’t think its accurate at all assume his speech is not heart-felt simply because he read it and didn’t speak extemporaneously.
I think the most likely situation here is that each person is given a very short amount of time to speak (by the event planner) so that the event can run on schedule. A large gala like this needs to run smoothly. So, it does often require people to write their speeches. As a side note, all of our Emcee’s (Emily Blunt, Sam Waterston, Byron Pitts, Katie Couric) have read their speeches. Perhaps they’re more polished in their delivery, but that’s to be expected.
Again, I want to remind all readers of this blog that when we post a video – please, please, please know that we are not showing the video as a way to display a person’s level fluency. We post these videos so that we can share people’s real life experiences. If our clients, in these videos, choose to use some sort of speech management technique, that’s fine with us. If not, that’s fine too. For the people that are generous and brave enough to share in a video blog, I think the last thing they’d want is for someone to watch and listen strictly to how fluent they were, or how they could have managed slightly better.
Comment by Carl — September 2, 2010 @ 11:22 am
Hi Carl,
Good to hear from you, why is it that Chamonix never answers a post and it is only you?
Not that that is a problem, someone from AIS is answering, but just wondered why no one except you is answering. Are you the Acting Director of AIS at this time an only the Director answers? Has she left AIS?
I get the impression that the bulk of your program is directed at mental strategies for desensitization and not at fluency techniques, would that be accurate? What percentage of your program is actually devoted to fluency/speech techniques?
I agree that the celebrities have copies of their speeches but they refer to them much less than do your clients.
My impression is that there is much more of a chance for people to be fluent or more comfortable if they don’t look the audience so they read their speech. People who stutter definitely have a problem talking to people and looking at them in the eye and they also have great difficulty giving speeches so it makes it easier if they can read their speech. I checked with some of my friends and acquaintances who stutter or did stutter and they agreed that if they didn’t look at the audience and read their speech they stuttered less.
I know you don’t want us to listen to how fluent they were but just concentrate on their message but are they not to a certain extent repeating all the positive “self talk” things you taught them?
Comment by steven Chen — September 2, 2010 @ 9:24 pm
Thanks again for sharing your impressions Steven.
Chamonix is the acting director, and as such, very very busy. No, she hasn’t left AIS. But, she hasn’t been able to respond to comments lately, as she very much likes to do.
If you’d like more info on how we break down our therapy approach re: mental vs. physical strategies, perhaps a consultation would be a good idea.
Comment by Carl — September 3, 2010 @ 12:08 am
HI Carl,
It would make sense that the acting director would be too busy to answer posts. Will you be getting another therapist to replace her?
WIth respect to my idea that people who stutter have an easier time speaking if they do not look at the audience a lot or at all is not an impression but based on experience and the experience of others (if you were suggesting that this idea was just my impression).
Thanks for letting me post and providing additional information.
Steven
Comment by Steven Chen — September 3, 2010 @ 11:27 am