Future SLP Advice
Hi, My name is Jordan, I am a future SLP. How has your experience with stuttering shaped the way you view yourself and the unique qualities you bring to the world? I would love to be able to tell this to future clients.
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Future SLP Advice — 1 Comment
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Thank you for your interesting question, Jordan.
As you can see in my paper this year, my shapes differ from year to year, but also from day to day, or moment to moment. https://isad.live/isad-2026/papers-presented-by-2026/creative-expression-2026/every-shade-of-voice-anita-blom/
During years of bullying at school, by students and teachers, and even stuttering not being accepted at home, I hated stuttering, my bullies and even myself, as “I wasn’t normal” (which was my conclusion from people’s reactions. I wanted to end my life (I wrote about that in revious ISAD online conferences, which you can still read). But when meeting the right people, people who say me behind my stutter, and other people who stutter, I realised I wasn’t my stutter. I was so much more. And thanks to them I started to see my skills and my personality, I started to challenge myself, putting myself into tough situations, realizing that my stutter didn’t stop me, as long as I felt confident about myself and my skills, which projected onto my listener. The more I believed in myself, as a person, wife, mother, employee, etc, the more people saw all these parts of me, accepted and respected me. So when I decided to face my demons and go back to school, they asked me to become a teacher. Who wouldn’t have thought, me who hated school, was now a teacher, and even taught teachers!
So yes, stuttering is tough, but so are PWS. Help your client to focus on what they’re good at, both when it comes to skills, passion and personality. Help them expand their comfort zones. Help the people around them to understand what stuttering is and what it is not. Help them to find the stuttering community. Children camps, youth camps, adult events, as feeling you’re not alone and seeing people who stutter and still follow their dreams is so uplifting!
My husband says I’m not the woman he married (in a positive way). I’m the one making the phone calls, do the errands, join community and organisational boards, speak up at political meetings and make the complaints. 😉 I still stutter, but no longer with shame and fear, and through saying what, when and where I want to say it, my stutter has decreased. Win-win. 🙂
Keep them talking!
Anita