Blogs

When I read headlines that say “One in Ten Children Stutter, But It’s No Big Deal” or “Study: Preschoolers’ Stuttering Not Harmful,” I tend to think of the implications they have for the time constrained parent or doctor.

Greetings from London! Over the last two weeks I have been busy observing eight remarkable young people aged between 15 and 19 work immensely hard so that stuttering had less of an impact on their lives. 

Two months ago, Harrison Craig wowed us with his rendition of Broken Vow at the blind auditions of the second season of The Voice – Australia. Fast forward ahead to the June 17 and he was crowned the winner of the second season of The Voice. 

Lazaro Arbos progresses to the Top 10 in American Idol and what better way to celebrate than to share a list of my Top 5 list that inspires me (and put me in a good mood)? We’ve all had moments where things don’t seem to work out and everything seems to be wrong with our lives.  Music plays a big part in my life and I’m always on the lookout for new songs for my playlists.

I played my first show because there was this girl I wanted to impress. At the time, the alternative-rock of the 90's was starting to give way to the the pop-punk of the early 00's - so we were listening to everything from Matchbox Twenty to All-American Rejects to Blink 182. Nobody else in the band wanted to sing, so I had to figure it out.

A couple of nights ago, the stuttering community jumped for joy when Lazaro Arbos auditioned for American Idol. The social and media firestorm that ensued was amazing, which ultimately led to increased awareness and education for those about stuttering.

Sometimes stories are best told with pictures. Ben, a 9-year-old boy who started coming to our clinic in 2009, wanted to share his story so that others could find the inspiration and courage to continue their journey with their own stuttering. These pictures have been taken from Ben’s participation in our Confident Communicators group we ran this year where five boys and their parents participated in four group therapy sessions spread out over the year.

Recently, I was reading September’s issue of New Zealand M2 magazine and stumbled across an article entitled “10 Things Golf Teaches Us About Business.” I normally glaze over articles about golf (give me an article on tennis anytime!) and/or business but this one had some thoughtful insights which seemed to apply to stuttering.

The presidential election is over and what a close one it was (we got quite a bit of news coverage over here in New Zealand)! Similar to the election results, though much smaller in scale and way less significant, the SNL Skit survey had an even spread of reactions until a few vital responses swung the results to indicate that most people found the skit mildly amusing (10% more than the next response).