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You have about ten minutes to complete these character profiles, ok?
At the Our Time workshop in New York city, young people who stutter come together
in a patient and understanding environment. I am Danielle and I am 19 years old.
My name is Claire, and I am eight years old. I'm Julianna and I'm 13 years old.
My name is Philip, and I'm 15 years old.
I am Tyler and I am ten years old. What does it feel like physically when you're
stuttering? It kind of feels, you know, like…
at times like there's like no like air, like passing, like, you and your, you know,
like, like, like, like locked in like your throat.
When… when… People who stuttered were considered feeble
minded. I mean, world went around
that George VI was feeble minded because he stuttered.
My first… word… Screen writer David Seidler understands the
humiliation Britain's King George VI felt. As a child Seidler suffered from a severe
stutter. He was my childhood hero.
That's why I grew up always thinking one day I want to write something about King George
VI. I have received… the… the…
And so the British born Seidler scripted the oscar-nominated "The King’s Speech".
Here was a man who was king. He was speaking to the world.
Everyone, friend or foe, was listening to every syllable he uttered,
waiting for him to stutter. And if he could do that, there was hope for
me. Though Seidler seems to have overcome his
impediment, he still counts himself among the three million
Americans and 65 million worldwide who stutter.
Experts define stuttering, also called stammering, as an involuntary disruption of the rhythm
and flow of speech. The person knows what he or she wants to say
but just can't produce the words fluently. Boys are three to four times more likely to
stutter than girls. And just as no two people have the same voice,
no two people stutter in the same way. You may not know a child is stuttering when
they're just producing one word. Christine Webber-Fox and Anne Smith are the
lead researchers at purdue university's stuttering project.
When they start putting words together is usually when you see it.
So “mommy, up” or “daddy, eat” or something like that.
So you typically see it maybe at around age 3.
Speaking, they point out, is complex for anyone. First of all you have so many muscles you
have to control. You have to think of what you want to say.
You have to generate the grammar. So there's just many, many levels of activity
in the brain. Very widespread activity when you're speaking.
It turns out that the emotional system also, the whole brain, everything in the brain is
inter-acting. And so that impacts how we control our muscles.
Over the course of five years, Smith and Webber-Fox are following 72 children
who stutter. Monitoring their brain waves and testing their
motor skills. Some will stop stuttering, others will not.
We don't have any good predictor of who are these children really at high risk
for chronic stuttering. And so by the end of our project,
we're really hoping that we'll be able to key in on what are those key things that might
differentiate. I think just coming to therapy has like built
myself confidence. Lee Cagliano became a speech therapist 20
years ago after her own son began stuttering. She used to meet parents who were certain
they knew what caused their kid's stuttering. What would a parent say typically back then?
That they disciplined their kid wrong. They toilet trained their child wrong.
They talked too fast or too slow. They talked too much, they didn't talk enough.
Something they did that must have caused the stuttering.
Researchers don't know exactly what causes stuttering.
The roots are neurological. It's not caused by anxiety.
Studies show there is a genetic component. It runs in some families.
But for Cagliano, what causes the stuttering isn't as important as the emotional impact.
Is it fair to say it's more about making you comfortable with yourself
than actually eliminating the stuttering? Yeah. Especially since eliminating the stuttering,
for many people the only way to do that is to stop speaking.
Someone who is not "not speaking"? The founder of Our Time, Taro Alexander.
He was 11 when he realized he was a stutterer. I became obsessed with not stuttering.
I mean really from age 11 to about 26 years old,
that was my number one goal in life was to just not let anyone know that I stuttered.
He developed an elaborate tool box of tricks to mask his stuttering.
Give me an example of some of the tricks you deploy.
(Yawning) Excuse me. I thought maybe that was one of them.
It is. Oh, really?
Oh, yeah. I'm so sorry I'm just really tired. I would yawn through a whole conversation
because I would never stutter when I yawn. (Whispering) I would whisper a lot.
I really, I don't know what happened, I lost my voice last night.
You never stutter when you whisper. I will never stutter, for me.
This is not a rule about stuttering but this is effective for me.
But 12 years ago, Alexander slipped. Performing on stage, he stuttered.
That's when he decided to stop hiding. And now when I stutter,
because the emotional baggage is no longer there
and it's not a big thing to me anymore, you know?
Since I've got some... survival… 15 year old Philip from "Our Time"
sees an upside to the challenge he faces in speaking.
One thing that I think is pretty universal for stutterers
is that since we need to deal with this every single day of our lives,
I think that everyone will agree that it really teaches com-compassion.
Still the most ordinary interactions can be fraught for stuttering kids and grown-ups
alike. There's a lot of experiences as a new dad
meeting other parents, having to say your kid's name.
And a… You know, that can be a… That can be really hard.
Do you sometimes have trouble saying your kid's names?
Yes. I do.
For a long time I thought, you know, I don't know that I want to have kids because
I don't know... I don't know what I would name them.
Because… I don't want to stutter on their name for their whole life. You know?
I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be that parent when everyone
is introducing their kid's names. And not even for me but for my kid.
You know, what will my kid think of me when I can't say their name?
You and your wife ended up giving your kids names you wanted to give them?
That's a great question. You know, we did.
We did. I don't want to put you on the spot and ask
what are your boys' names, but… What are your boys' names
Yeah. My oldest son, his name is Jackson. And my youngest son's name is Arthur.
Those are great names. Thank you.
You're bold, you're brave and you're beautiful. Stuttering might alter a life but Alexander
believes it should never compromise it. When I say Our time, you say Our Time, Our
Time, Our Time… I am interested in the medical field.
I'm going to go to college to become a photojournalist. See you all next week. Have a good one.