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From: Reuben Schuff
Date: 15 Oct 2011
Time: 11:47:20 -0500
Remote Name: 72.165.233.66
Ahh childhood and teen years, great question… strategies and support…I didn’t have any that were any good. My public school tried to the extent that they could, but the half hour a week we’d spend trying to make me fluent didn’t help very much and I became more frustrated each year. I’d try as hard as I could to “talk well”. I had times when I didn’t stutter, most people do, for example when you speak in unison or read by yourself. So I thought I must have all the right physical mechanisms that I need to “talk right” and If I just tried harder that I should be able to fix my terrible able to speak. Unfortunately “try harder” isn’t really an action plan that you can do, but that was the best I could come up with on my own at that point of life. There are many options for kids and teens available now that may not have existed when I was younger or may not have known about. If you’re in the USA, the National Stuttering Association (NSA) has a great youth and families program, FRIENDS is an organization that focuses on kids who stutter, both the NSA and SFA (Stuttering Foundation of America) have books and DVD’s for kids, teens and parents. The stuttering homepage (the host of this conference) is a gateway to these resources and much much more. There’s pad casts (Stuttertalk.com), Facebook groups, email list serves, etc. How much our world has changed in 20 years! Thanks for your interest. ~Reuben