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

Johnny Damon

Johnny Damon, a two-time all-star major league baseball player, has won two World Series championships with the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. Damon is well versed in talking to reporters and gave hundreds of interviews in the clubhouse after games, so it may come as a surprise to many to hear that he also struggled with stuttering.

David Mitchell

David Mitchell is an award-winning novelist from England, known for best-selling works such as Ghostwritten, Number9Dream, Cloud Atlas, and the semi-autobiographical novel about his struggle with speaking, Black Swan Green.

Herschel Walker

Click here for list of Famous People Who Stutter

Helping Our Graduates Succeed

You’ve graduated from college! Woo hoo! Your friends and family are so excited! Everyone is telling you, “This is it!”, “Today begins the rest of your life!”, “You’re gonna miss homework once you get a taste of the real world!”, and “No more summer vacations for you!”

Ed Sheeran

Award-winning singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran shares about his stuttering during an AIS event June 8th in New York City.

While Sheeran may be famous now, he used to just be a bullied kid with a debilitating stutter, he shared. But one thing helped him overcome that stutter and a troubled childhood: Music.

Annie Glenn

When you hear about famous people who stutter, you often hear stories about the struggles they faced as a young child, before they outgrew or overcame their stuttering. Annie Glenn had a different story to tell. The wife of John Glenn, the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the earth, Annie Glenn lived a very public life with a severe stutter for more than 50 years. She passed away on May 19, 2020.

Summer Reading List

Here are a few suggestions for your child’s summer reading list…

Younger readers

Attacking the Iceberg of Stuttering: Icepicks, Axes, and Sunshine!

An excerpt of Chapter 21 from the book Advice to Those Who Stutter

By Larry Molt, Ph.D.

Stuttering Foundation Celebrates Stuttering Awareness Week By Honoring Entrepreneurism

For Immediate Release

Contact: Greg Wilson

greg@curleycompany.com

571-239-7474

President Joe Biden

During a CNN town hall, President Joe Biden discussed stuttering. Here are some of his remarks from the event:

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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.

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.

Ken Venturi

As much of the nation watches the U.S. Open Golf Championship, it is impossible not to think about our late friend Ken Venturi. Ken overcame many challenges to win the Open at Congressional in 1964 and go on to become the voice of golf for more than three decades.

However, Ken faced no bigger obstacle than stuttering. Ken Venturi was a champion to those who stutter, going out of his way to share his personal experience when consulted by a colleague, friend, or child who stutters.

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.