About the presenter: Joshua Schmid is a resident of Lancaster, New York. He has been a member of the Buffalo chapter of the National Stuttering Association since August 2008. Joshua is a sophomore at Lancaster High School in Lancaster, New York, where he is a proud member of the school choir and the national Project Lead the Way pre-engineering program. Ever since taking an intensive speech therapy course at Buffalo State University in 2008, Joshua has rarely let stuttering get in the way of his speaking, and he wants to help other stutterers with speaking comfortably.

You can post Questions/comments about the following paper to the author before October 22, 2009.


Dealing with Fear by Practicing

by Joshua Schmid
from New York, USA

Many people who stutter (as well as many people who don't stutter) fear speaking situations, and sometimes avoid them. One way to deal with that fear is to practice! I felt that we did not have enough practice speaking in everyday situations at our support groups meetings, so I took the initiative to create a practice exercise myself. We went around the table and talked together about how to handle each situation. Then we role played the speaking situations described (about 2-3 minutes). It gave everyone practice opportunities in realistic speaking situations which will hopefully help prepare us for similar situations in real life, and help us deal with the feel we sometimes feel when speaking.

I hope other support groups will find the powerpoint I created useful. It is attached below!

Talking as a Stutterer: How to not avoid speaking!


You can post Questions/comments about the above paper to the author before October 22, 2009.


SUBMITTED: September 23, 2009
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