"A Voice for Stutterers" Orange County Register 2/7/13

Here's the link for the article on the kid on American Idol who stutters:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/speech-494954-sing-music.html

Sometimes these links don't work. If that's the case here, just go to the Orange County Register's home page & put "A Voice for Stutterers" in the search box.

February 11 Meeting Update: Openness

The hardest thing for me as a stutterer is how to tell someone else that I stutter. When's a good time to say it? What words to use? Ones that I know I'll probably stutter on, to show what stuttering is like? Or ones that I'm confident I can say fluently, to avoid awkwardness? What do I do when I want to "come out" to someone I've known for a long time? How do I make sure that a person I'm meeting for the first time sees me as more than a stutterer? Is it better just to say nothing?

At our last night's meeting, one group member talked about how she deals with this tricky problem, and her strategy struck me as not only very useful but also compelling. Before she even introduces herself, in person, on the phone, or in a public speaking situation, she says this: All my life I've had a speech disability. I hope you can look beyond the imperfections of my speech. If there's something you don't understand, please let me know and I will be glad to explain it. 

It might seem like avoidance not to use the word stutter when you're trying to tell people that you're a stutterer. But the only thing that really matters is to find a way to talk about your stutter that works for you. The particular arrangement of words and sentences isn't as important as the intention behind them: to stop hiding. Few of us have the courage, after years of anxiety about our stutter, to let it all hang out. We need to dip our toe in the water first. We need to peel back our defenses one layer at a time.

These defenses are extremely hard to let go of because they served us when there was nothing else that helped. We shared war stories at our last meeting about all the horrible reactions we got from other people when we stuttered (weird facial expressions, having the phone hung up on you, bullying), and all the tricks we developed to hide our stutter and stop these reactions: pretending to be sick, jumping through hoops to get classes in college where reading aloud isn't required, causing your own nose to bleed, faking laryngitis. It's enough to make you laugh and cry at the same time.

In the end, we want to become open about our stutter not to prevent other people from thinking badly of us, but to prevent ourselves from thinking badly about ourselves. All our group members said that those silly excuses to avoid speaking left bitterness and emotional scars behind. In the long run, it does us far more harm than good to hide. There's no better way to help ourselves than to talk openly about our stutter, no matter how awkward it feels at first. It may even feel impossible. But try to figure out what little part of it is possible for you right now. And go out and try it.

I think the way the students were handled at last night's meeting was about right. They were observers not participators. They had about the last 12 minutes to ask questions & they obviously came with a lot of prepared questions, most likely assigned to them by their teacher. It's a good thing they didn't start to ask questions until the meeting was close to over, or they would have used up the whole meeting with their questions. They even wanted our emails to send us questions! Because they had so many questions, breaking the students & participants into small groups was a good idea. The only suggestion I would make is to have the students ask their questions after the meeting is over at 7PM. That way, whoever wants to stay & answer questions could do so & it wouldn't cut into the time we have for our meeting. Of course, if we're expected to be out of the room by 7PM this wouldn't work.

I also attend the Riverside NSA meetings. Students were there this past Sunday & asked questions at the end. However, their questions didn't seem to be prepared and were much briefer. I guess they had a different teacher than last night's students.

January 30 Meeting Update: Public Speaking

On Wednesday, Jan. 30th we had our first public speaking forum for the the South OC chapter. For someone who stutters, we have challenges everyday, however standing up and giving a speech is incredibly difficult. Some studies have suggested that people have a greater fear of giving a speech in public than death. This class allows us to face our fears and speak amongst our peers.

Everyone who attended was ready and participated by reading a speech, book or commented on a topic for 5 to 10 minutes. What was amazing was the attendees ranged from a skilled toast master level orator down to someone who never read out loud in her life.

The most covered topic was reading with conviction. Pausing, sliding and better phonation seemed to be a key in drawing people into the topic. I think our minds want to just get through this...and reading something in a flat, mono tone voice is a great way to do this. However, being able to have the confidence to do this needs to be practiced everyday.

Think of the things you've gotten proficient at doing; cooking, golfing, pool, hiking etc. Reading out loud could be a great first step for 10 to 20 minutes a day. It's this reading out loud allows us to play with our phonation, sliding on non-feared words, pausing, continuous phonation and presence. However, it also might just be getting used to hearing our own voice.

So get uncomfortable, read aloud!

Posted by Matt