Last November at the ASHA Convention in New Orleans, some ASHA representatives were videotaping clinicians to find out what their stories were and how they got into the field. I was approached while on my way to the poster hall and agreed to do it. They said they would select some of the clinicians and it may end up on the ASHA website.
I totally forgot about it and recently a colleague from an old job emailed me that when he went to the ASHA website, he saw the video and was now asking for an autograph (you know, as a joke). 
Laughing aside, I think it is interesting to see what drew people to our field. For me, I was drawn to the area of stuttering right off the bat in graduate school. They chose to air that story that I told.
See Chamonix’s video on the ASHA website.
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Pingback by Tweets that mention A success story: Chamonix featured on the ASHA website « American Institute for Stuttering -- Topsy.com — June 22, 2010 @ 7:46 pm
Chamonix,
Wow is the first word I thought of after watching that video. I applaud you for really taking the assignment to heart. I feel like by your reaction afterwards, you really got a glimpse of what it’s like to stutter. Well done. As a person who stutters, I want to say thank you!
Comment by Sarah B. — June 25, 2010 @ 10:10 pm
Thanks Sarah! As a therapist I feel it is so important to step into our clients shoes and to do the things we ask them to do as well. I was lucky enough to have that professor 10-11 years ago. Now here at AIS I have our interns go out and plan out what type of stuttering they will do and they go up to store clerks and do their best stuttering. Oftentimes the interns are more scared than the clients, which is great for the clients to see. The interns get to practice this over and over again while they are here.
Comment by Chamonix — June 28, 2010 @ 1:16 pm
Hi Chamonix,
Actually I didn’t know that the AIS website had this video I came upon it elsewhere.
I liked this video but, as a stutterer whose problems has improved greatly over the years (initially my stuttering was rated as severe), I have found out that most people don’t make eye contact with a stutterer because they feel bad for the person and by not making eye contact they feel that the person who stutters will feel less badly about it. Besides, I have to admit, now that I speak much better, that I can understand why people acted the way they did because it is really uncomfortable to talk to someone who stutters because it is out of the norm for how people talk. The pace of talking is so fast in this society, people talk over each other, interrupt alot, etc. when you come upon a person who stutters it can be very surprising to hear someone talk like that. That is, as my speech improved and I started to interact more with non-stutterers, and I felt more sure of myself and more confident in myself, making sure I was able to speak fluently in spite of what kind of conversation I was having and with whom, etc. thru alot of practicing and work and experiencing success, I realized, looking over my past speaking, that people were not looking at me and maybe started to do something else as we spoke, or made minimal eye contact,etc. that they were actually, as I mentioned before, trying to make me feel less bad about what I was going thru. For example, as I had a problem in the past looking at people, they would not make eye contact to allow me to feel less tense about it and speak more fluently. I, who was once a severe critic of people who spoke to me when my speech was more erratic, now realize in retrospect that they were not as unkind as I thought. A person who stutters in this society can be a very suprising experience and if a person who doesn’t stutter encounters someone who does, most people don’t even know what to do and they might look away and, talk with the other person as you described in your video, not because they are unkind, uncaring, biased etc but because they simply don’t know how to handle it.
Comment by Steven Chen — July 24, 2010 @ 1:43 pm