March 2024

Post date: March 28, 2024

We had a great meeting this week, with 8 attendees! Two grad students from California had previously emailed and asked to attend and of course, I said YES! They added good questions and perspectives to our meeting and we are so grateful and appreciative that young upcoming SLPs want to know about the lived experience of stuttering. Also a first-timer; great to meet you, Tess! Hope you join in again and good to see our Regional captain Jeff again on the screen. Rounding out our meeting were Chris, Andy, Natalie, and myself. We discussed some of our past therapies and also about acceptance and how we learned to "affirm" our amazing personalities and qualities! We also discussed "teasing", "verbal abuse", etc. It's a fine line as sometimes we encounter "adults who should know better" who mimic our stuttering. So what is their motivation? Their nervousness or uncomfortableness masked by the teasing, or just trying to be funny? We also again visited the topic of the damage that such verbal barbs/commands to "spit it out" will do to a young child as they are just developing their sense of self and self-image. This was a good topic for the grad students to hear as we ALL encouraged them to include the parents as part of the process and to consider the parents also as their "clients".