Posts Tagged ‘stuttering pride’
Missing My Stuttering Friends
Posted on: July 7, 2021
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This year is the first time in 15 years that I have not attended the annual NSA conference. I found the NSA in 2006 and have gone 15 consecutive times. I see friends posting pictures on social media and I’m finding that I am fiercely missing the conference and my friends. Some of those friends I only see once a year, but it’s OK, as we pick up right where we left off.
For so long, I felt shame and fear about stuttering, thinking as many of us do, that I was the only one who stutters. It was never discussed in my family, so the feelings of shame, guilt, and fear kept me in hiding for a long time.
When I attended my first conference in 2006, it was like a weight had been lifted off my chest. There were other people and all looked normal, like me. We just talked differently. That profound experience helped me realize that I could now help people deal with shame and coming out of hiding.
This blog and my podcast gives me joy. I’m using my experience to help someone else peel that personal stigma off.
Friend Hanan has more than once told me that finding others who stutter has been like oxygen for him.
That and finding our tribe – where we can stutter openly with no fear of judgment. I am really missing my tribe, my friends, my mentors.
I am having surgery on my right hand this Friday, so I may not be able to type or text for a while. I needed to post this today. I love seeing the pictures friends are posting on social media, but it is also bittersweet.
Find The Right Words
Posted on: October 15, 2020
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The folks over at the British Stammering Association, now known as Stamma, have launched a brilliant campaign to change the language used to describe stuttering or stammering.
Very often, stuttering is described using negative, derogatory language, resulting in personal and public perceptions that stuttering is bad and something that must be overcome.
Check out this wonderful brief video to see what they did to “find the right words,” and reduce the stigma about stuttering.
A Tuning Fork – Episode 216
Posted on: April 10, 2020
Episode 216 is all inclusive. I bring two guests on air to discuss the importance of challenging the assumption that stammering is inferior to fluent speech. I am joined by Sam Simpson, a Speech and Language Therapist and Patrick Campbell, a pediatric physician. Both Sam and Patrick hail from the UK.
Sam and Patrick collaborated with Chris Constantino to author the book, Stammering Pride and Prejudice. The book delves into how we examine and accept differences that are often conditioned by society.
Listen in as we discuss navigating societal norms, rethinking differences as just a construct of human variation of differences, and understanding the social model vs medical model of disability.
Sam wrote an article about the social model of stammering in 1999, but the “soil wasn’t ready” at that time. Patrick shares a point that really resonated with me about agency. “This is my voice, this is the way I speak, and I’m allowed to speak like this.”
This was such an important conversation and I am grateful for the knowledge and insights shared by both Sam and Patrick.
Anyone in the USA interested in buying the book can visit StutteringTherapyResources.
Stuttering Pride
Posted on: August 23, 2016
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Every year, the stuttering community celebrates International Stuttering Awareness Day on October 22. It’s a day for people across the world to recognize stuttering, educate others who don’t stutter and raise awareness of an often isolating difference.
For the last 12 years, the community has further celebrated by participating in a three week online conference about stuttering, hosted by the International Stuttering Association (ISA.) The conference is held from Oct 1-Oct.22 and can be found linked to the ISA site.
This year, the theme of the conference is stuttering pride. Yes, we can take pride in the fact that we stutter, that we’re part of a huge community that empowers each other and that can take responsibility for educating others about stuttering.
The conference needs to hear from you, people who stutter, loved ones of people who stutter and people generally interested in the stuttering community. The conference is seeking submissions of papers, audio or video around the theme of stuttering pride. Specific information can be found here at the ISAD section of the ISA site.
Won’t you consider writing something about your stuttering experience? Or sharing an audio or video message? It can go a long way towards the goal of educating others and creating a world that better understands stuttering.
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