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From: Vickie Benda
Date: 10/4/03
Time: 11:51:50 PM
Remote Name: 68.115.112.128
Thanks for a great article. I am a 2nd year graduate clinician in speech pathology. I am also a person who has stuttered at 3 different periods in my life. The hardest period of stuttering for me was between 5 years old and 8 years old. I have always had the feeling I stuttered much longer due to how I was treated by my mother and my teachers. Your article provided a "light bulb" moment for me when you said "stutterers begin to organize their lives around their stuttering". I was forced to speak in school until my words came out without a stutter of any kind. Needless to say, I was constantly tense when my turn to speak was approaching. In my case, others ordered my life around my stuttering and I followed suit. I have no idea why I quit stuttering when I did. I do know though that my identity of myself as a "stutterer" was formed during that period of my life because of how I was treated by others. I still consider myself as a PWS but it is only one of many facets that make me who I am. Thanks again.