About the Author: My name is Catalina Valer García, I am a Speech – Language Pathologist and I live in Lima-Peru. I studied Special Education at the Women’s University of the Sacred Heart in Lima, almost 31 years ago, with the specialty of “Disturbances in Communication”, later I studied a Master’s Degree in Speech Therapy with a mention in Oral Motor, Voice and Stuttering and I have made national and international presentations in relation to Research carried out around Stuttering.  Currently almost 100% of my students have stuttering and I enjoy working with them.

As an SLP, I have worked with many young people, children, and families with Stuttering. I met several of the young people when they were children, teenagers, and attending middle school. Currently, most of them are studying at university, and some have already completed their professional degree.

Last year, along with two colleagues and friends of mine, we had the desire to hold a free meeting for parents, family members, and children with stuttering, right in October 2024. We wanted the meeting to be in person so that we could be closer to the parents and children, able to see them, listen to them, and hug them; since most of the activities had been virtual.

So, within the program, we decided to include a musical theater performed by the young people who stutter. The play was called ‘The Forest of Talking Animals’, which was a story to talk about stuttering.

The young people were very excited to perform this musical theater because each of them was going to characterize a little animal, there was a lot of excitement because they had been summoned, we had our theater script, we did several rehearsals to be prepared; Each one of them had to put on the costume of the animal, have their face painted like the animal, walk and talk as if they were the real character and we were also going to have a very expectant audience.

So in this forest lived the snail ‘Lentín’ who spoke slowly, there also lived the jumping frog who spoke by repeating words; there was also the little bunny “Danielita” who spoke very quickly; different from the snake who was missing a tooth and spoke stretching out the words and the bear ‘Grandón’ who was a big eater and spoke loudly; the good thing was that they were all friends. However, one day a robot arrived who spoke like a ro-bot and wanted to play with the little animals, but at first, the forest animals didn’t want to play with him because he wasn’t a little animal and spoke ‘differently’. However, they later realized that they all spoke differently and decided to be friends; they hugged, accepted each other, were happy, and played in a circle together.

This moment of the theater was wonderful because the young people were able to teach the little ones and the parents that everyone is different and we can accept those differences. It was also a space where the young people could dare to act, dance, speak, and to teach a good message in front of an audience that listened to them and watched with great attention and emotion; in addition to gaining more confidence and integrating among themselves.

I believe that with this example we can see how the difficulties we go through ultimately become a strength because we can help other people who are going through the same, since we have been trained through those difficult moments.

Video link to the play “El Bosque de las Animales Parlantes”: