During a meeting of the Canadian Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists in St. John's, Newfoundland, Cecil Hare, a traffic reporter for a radio station in that city, told the story of how he grew up with a severe stutter, and how it affects his life today. Growing up in Corner Brook, Newfoundland in the 1970s, there was no access to speech therapy or education about the problem. Cecil shares his story with the CBC here. You can also view a video of his speech.

I was very pleased that I had the opportunity to attend the celebration of the Institute for Stuttering Treatment and Research (ISTAR's) 25th anniversary and Deborah Kully's retirement as executive director of the institute, in Edmonton on March 3, 2012.

Over 140 people attended the event at the University of Alberta Faculty Club, which was also the site of ISTAR’s inauguration celebration in December 1986.

Michael Niven of Calgary did a great job as master of ceremonies at this event.

This article was first published in the Fall/Winter 2011 version of CSA Voices.

Upon returning home from the National Stuttering Association conference in Fort Worth, Texas last year, I’ll admit that one of the first things I did was log onto Facebook. Its normal addictive powers are even greater when you come home from a conference that hosted 800 people and you want to connect with them. During the first few post-conference days, I felt like I was high on Facebook. I spent more hours than usual on it, adding new stuttering friends and browsing through profiles. It’s the power of social media.