It has been a long time since I have made an update on this, my beloved blog. I have had so much going on over the past year, namely with health related issues that have pulled me away from writing.

But I’ve made a pledge that I am going to come back to this, to share my continued experiences with stuttering.

For the journey never ends.

Many of you may know that I have been an active part of the International Stuttering Awareness Day online conference for a long time. I joined the planning team in 2013, after contributing for a few years. I’ve helped come up with the theme a few times, including this year.

This year’s ISAD conference offers the opportunity to explore and share the full spectrum of stuttering and talk about what stuttering means to you and all of the ways it impacts you, your life and your friends, family and co-workers.

Stuttering takes many forms – overt, covert and often many places in between. It can be loud, silent, hardly a blip or all consuming. When I pitched this idea to the ISAD planning team, my first thoughts about the spectrum of stuttering were that it’s like ice cream. It comes in many flavors and options. Chocolate, vanilla, cones, sundaes, banana splits, root beer floats, you name it, there’s probably some sweet treat you like that includes ice cream.

The team brought up a good point. Most people really like ice cream, so would that arc adequately reflect all the types of stuttering. We then pivoted to eye glasses and sunglasses and played with the idea of the many different “shades” people wear.

And voila! The theme was born and our creatives on the team got to work and created a cool logo (not me! I am perpetually non-creative!)

The ISAD online conference runs for the entire month of October 2026, and we’d love to hear your voice. Check it out here and consider being part of the world wide phenomenon of ISAD.