First dates, butterflies and wondering when your crush will text you back are enough to make anyone’s head spin. But for someone who stutters, there’s an added layer of personal anxiety.
From the electrical telegraph, to the rotary dial phone, and now the cellphone, humans have always had a longing and desire to innovate and communicate. But, who would have thought that this technological advancement would be such a terror to a segment of the population?
The striking young woman is poised and confident on the stage. Her voice is strong as she describes her own stuttering in eloquent poetic language. Her stuttering is “…in breath calm and measured… stripping speech of nuance…” She addresses the trepidations of saying her own name: “I have let it sit heavy in my throat…. a tool of betrayal…” She reveals that “the stuttering is the most honest part of me…” and “…the only thing that never lies…”. To applause, she states “…when I stutter I am speaking my own language fluently…”.
One woman who stutters has taken the internet by storm after she was discriminated against and detained at an airport. Why was she detained? Because she stuttered on the words “Costa Rica”.
We recently had someone on Twitter ask us if an app could be a replacement for a Speech Easy device. Here's what our resident Speech-Language Pathologist (and fellow stutterer) Casey Kennedy had to say.
For many years, I was involved in community self-organizing on behalf of people who stutter. Years ago I formed a Toronto-based self-help group for people who stutter; our first meeting was held in September 1988 at the North York Library.