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From: Thomas David Kehoe
Date: 01 Oct 2006
Time: 11:45:48 -0500
Remote Name: 67.176.41.167
Bravo! As a former National Stuttering Project chapter leader I hosted similar meetings. One of our favorite questions to discuss was, "How would your life be different if you didn't stutter?" At first people would say their life would be better without stuttering. Then we'd think of ways that our life would be worse, e.g., I wouldn't have developed my writing skills. Acting is one of the best activities a stutterer can do. James Earl Jones, Bruce Willis, and Nicholas Brendan overcame stuttering by acting in high school. I tell parents and SLPs working with teenagers who stutter to get the teenager interested in acting. Teenagers will practice a skill for hours, if they're passionate about it. Rather than being passionate about video games or 4H or something that doesn't require talking, I say to get teenagers passionate about an activity that requires talking. I took 3 semesters of acting classes a few years ago. The third course culminated in performing a play that my classmates and I wrote, directed, and performed. Afterwards I had a friend videotape me interviewing audience members asking what they thought about my stuttering. Everyone said they loved the play, they loved me, and they loved my stuttering. They said that my stuttering added to the characters I played, and they wouldn't want an actor who didn't stutter playing my parts. This was the first time in my life that I'd asked listeners what they thought about my stuttering. Don't assume that stuttering is a negative?if you ask, you might find that your stuttering is seen as a positive. You can watch the video on my website: http://www.casafuturatech.com/Videos/listeners.shtml You can also watch a video of a performance I did at a coffeehouse last week: http://www.casafuturatech.com/Videos/testosterone.shtml Marija, are you going to the 8th Congress for People Who Stutter, May 6-10, 2007 in Dubrovnik, Croatia? I read a guidebook about Croatia and now I'm reading a second guidebook. Your country sounds beautiful and Zadar looks like the most beautiful city.