Hide | Stuttering Foundation: A Nonprofit Organization Helping Those Who Stutter

Meet Lionel!

If you live in the New York area, and have ever watched the news on WPIX, you know Lionel. And now we know Lionel, too. Lionel has become the latest celebrity to speak out on behalf of those who stutter, and it won’t be long before the entire country starts hearing radio public service announcements for the Stuttering Foundation featuring his wonderful voice.

International Stuttering Awareness Day

October 22 was designated International Stuttering Awareness Day (ISAD) in 1998, sixteen years ago. This day is intended to raise public awareness of stuttering, which affects one percent of the world's p

Just What the Doctor Ordered: Help for Kids Who Stutter Sent to 53,727 Pediatricians

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Contact: Greg Wilson
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(571) 239-7474

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (October 15, 2013) — “This is one of the most helpful pieces that I have been sent in my 27 years of private practice,” wrote a doctor from Washington state.

Golfers Stay on Track to Make Astonishing Gift to Memphis Foundation

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Build Your Vocab

Your teacher has posed a question to be answered by each student in turn. As each replies, your turn to answer is approaching. Your heart is pounding in panic, your mouth is parched dry with anxiety that you will have difficulty saying the word or expression to convey your thoughts. You have no confidence that you can reply without stuttering.

Netherlands Conference Draws a Crowd

This is an interview with Stuttering Foundation Board member Celia Gruss, who ran an informational booth at the 10th World Congress for People Who Stutter in June in the Netherlands. The event attracted people from across the globe.

Stuttering Foundation: “By George, He Has Big Shoes to Fill!”

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Contact: Greg Wilson 
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(571) 239-7474

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (July 24, 2013) — Jane Fraser, president of the Stuttering Foundation, had the following reaction to the naming of the most recent British heir to the monarchy:

“By George, he has big shoes to fill!

Stuttering Helped Start a Revolution

Camille Desmoulins, a French journalist and politician who stuttered, helped to incite and inflame the angry crowds who attacked and tore down the Bastille on July 14, 1789. Historians consider the fall of Bastille the flashpoint of the French Revolution.

Click here for other Famous People Who Stutter

Marathon Golfer Raises $2,500 for Stuttering Through Hundred Hole Hike

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Contact: Greg Wilson
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571-239-7474

Workshops Help Therapists Improve Skills

Each year the Stuttering Foundation holds professional workshops for speech-language pathologists. Here is some feedback from the Eastern 2012 Class:

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CELEBRITY FOCUS

Bill Withers

While Bill Withers has long been on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter, many people probably didn’t realize he stuttered. He passed away on March 30, 2020.

Born in 1938 in Slab Fork, W.V., Withers was the youngest of six children. When his father died when Withers was small, he was raised by his mother and grandmother, both of whom worked as domestics.

Bill Walton

From BillWalton.com

Thank you for your interest in my life long problem with my speech and communication skills. I was a very shy and reserved young man who could not speak at all without severely stuttering until I was 28 years old. Always a success in the classroom and on the basketball court, I took refuge in the things that I did well as a youngster. A straight A student, my athletic abilities covered the deficiencies that limited my overall growth and development. The game of basketball was my religion, the gym my church. It was a convenient way of avoiding my responsibilities of developing my human relation skills.

When I was 28, a chance encounter at a social event with Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Glickman completely changed my life in so many ways that things have never been the same since, nor have they ever been better. That day, in a very brief, private conversation (one way, mind you, since I literally could not speak at the time) Marty explained, patiently and concisely, that talking, communicating was a skill not a gift or a birthright and that like any skill, whether it be sports, music, business or whatever, needed to be developed over a lifetime of hard work, discipline, organization and practice. Marty gave me some simple tips that day and then encouraged me to take those keys and apply them to methods of learning that I had received from the special teachers that I had come across in my life, particularly the 6 Hall of Fame basketball coaches that I had played for throughout my career. The beginning of my whole new life was as simple as that. No gimmicks, tricks or shortcuts. Just the realization that with some help, guidance and a lot of hard work that I too could do what seemed so easy, simple and natural to everyone else, yet seemed impossibly out of my reach and comprehension.

Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor has been on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter for many years, but probably few people know all of the unique accomplishments of this former hockey great who was born on December 4, 1955, in Levack, Ontario.

Winston Churchill

Seeking to "remove Winston Churchill's stutter by second guessing the diagnosis" indicates neither a truthful retelling of history nor an informed opinion about a complex speech disorder, say experts in the field of speech-language pathology.

Recent news reports that quote Dr. John Mather, a Washington physician, as saying that Churchill's stutter "is a lie" brought adamant critical response from specialists in the field of stuttering and fluency disorders.

King George

In November 2010, worldwide movie audiences were presented with a most interesting and unusual movie release with The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth as King George VI and Helena Bonham Carter as his wife Elizabeth.

Unfortunately, history may have forgotten the courageous and inspiring story of Prince Albert who stuttered badly and never dreamed that he would ever be king when his older brother, King Edward VIII, abruptly abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee.