Episode 174 features Tiffani Kittilstved who hails from Seattle, Washington. Tiffani just completed her clinical fellowship year to become officially licensed as a SLP. She works in private practice and has a caseload that includes about 20 kids who stutter. Tiffani is also actively involved in the stuttering community.

Tiffani leads a family chapter of the National Stuttering Association in Seattle and is also involved with FRIENDS. She is organizing a one-day FRIENDS conference to be held in April, also in Seattle.

Listen in as we talk about the journey Tiffani has had to become a SLP. She had a rocky road in college, first starting out as pre-med and then realizing that she didn’t really like it. Tiffani realized she liked neuroscience and wanted to do something that involved stuttering. She switched majors to SLP and after her first class, the chair of the department told her she should quit, because parents would never want to work with her because of her stuttering.

She tells her story of deciding to pursue graduate school for SLP and doing a lot of research on “stuttering friendly universities.” They are out there!

And we talk about covert stuttering, offering hope and empowerment to parents of kids who stutter, and the importance of counseling in good therapy. Fun fact about Tiffani – she has a twin brother and they both stuttered, but he recovered.

This was such a fun conversation with a very inspiring young woman who stutters. I am looking forward to meeting Tiffani in person in July at the annual NSA conference.

The music used in today’s episode is credited to ccMixter.