Worldwide connection
Hi! We are two graduate students at the University of South Carolina going for our master’s in Speech Language Pathology. We think this thread is awesome and have a couple of questions for you!
How has connecting with others worldwide helped your experiences with stuttering? Have you noticed that different languages or cultures have different views on PWS?
Thank you!
Sam and Sarah
Hi Sam and Sarah
Thanks for your interesting question. At the age of 27 I found out I wasn’t the only one. I went to a local support group, the year after to a national meeting, and the year after the World congress for PWS was organised in my country, Sweden. We also have Nordic seminars each year, now growing way past the Nordic borders. 🙂 Thanks to the amazing feeling of belonging, hearing people talk in all different languages, learning about the different cultures and therapies, I got hooked and got involved in different ways. I’ll go as long as finances and health will allow me. You don’t have to know anyone, you just need to enter the room. In person, or, in corona times, virtually.
I learned things are different. Some countries have an active support group culture, others have none. In some countries, stuttering events are not visitied by SLPs as they want to keep their distance, while in other countries they are equals. Some have SLPs where stuttering needs to disapear, while in other countries stuttering is so accepted, there are no SLPs! In some countries speech training is free, in others you need to pay for yourself. In some countries treatment is eating crickets, or slapping the child, in other countries there is a multidiciplinary approach.
So do join us at our events, as events for PWS can have another focus than events for clinicians. And you’re so very welcome. 🙂
Stay safe and give us a visit
Anita Blom
Hi,
Sure conception of stuttering are different accross countries
What is nice about meeting PWS worldwide is to meet all the stuttering community, but also to understand that :
– Many PWS live the same thing, in the whole world You can share stories, dreams and projects
– The laws and the culture have an impact on our liffe as stutterers. However, we cannot control it. It taught me that sometimes I just ahd to let go. For instance, in France, a PWS cannot be an SLP. We currently work jointly to show that, like in the US or Japan, PWS can be SLPs, and PWS can also share their knowledge with SLPs who do dot stutter