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From: Erin Dyer
Date: 17 Oct 2010
Time: 16:45:23 -0500
Remote Name: 66.168.60.78
My personal journey toward learning as much as I can about stuttering has left me with several observations. No one approach works 100% of the time for all PWS. I see struggle to avoid saying something that may come out as a "stutter". But what I've observed over my years of attending the NSA Conventions is that as people begin to accept that sometimes they will struggle or have normal "speech mistakes", the presence of stuttering reduces. I have talked with a number of adults, teens and children. Those who are able to face their fears, seem to be more able to speak with ease - even if they do repeat sounds, syllables, ... I work with a junior in high school, whom I diagnosed with cluttering in elementary school. She developed stuttering behavior (tense repetitions) a few years later which I believe was in response to her mother's constant reminders to slow down. The parents divorced and the student lives with her father now. I have not heard any tense repetitions from the student, but she has indicated that cluttering is her main fluency disorder, based upon recognizing that she exhibits 5 or 6 of the characteristics. I am very proud of this student because when she realized that the author Lewis Carroll was a stutterer, she commented on how interesting that was because she stutters too. During the past 7 months, this young lady has accepted she sometimes stutters and if other people have a problem with that, it's their problem. I asked if she would feel embarrassed to reveal that Lewis Carroll stuttered when she gave her speech about him, she said "NO WAY!" Her speech to her class went very well. Was her rate too fast at times? Yes. Did she omit some of the sounds in some of the multisyllabic words? A few. Did she hold her head high and look people in the eye as she told them about this man who had something in common with her? You bet she did! I hope to some day bring this student to my support group at the university as she would be a great model for some who have not been able to address their own personal FEAR FACTOR.