Hello

[blkorchid]

Hi all, I am Tonya, a 24 year old college student from Texas. I am a double major in Criminal Justice and Anthropology. I will graduate in May 2008. Let's see, I first developed a stutter at the age of 3, but didn't actually know that I did until my kindergarten teacher instructed me, quite rudely, to "get it out already." How's that for an introduction to the disorder? But enough of the bad stuff. Tomorrow (June 27th) I am to give a speech in my communications class and I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the one thing that has had the most effect on my life: my stutter. Since I haven't been to any type of therapy or treatment in about 12 years I had to brush up on some of the technical terms and what not. That is how I found this forum; the beauty of Google :) . I hope to get to know a few of you and connect with people who really know what it is like to go through life with this disorder.

[Standingtall]

Welcome Tanya, i had smiliar experience, i didn't know i stuttered until a teacher made an issue about it. So if you don't mind, can you keep us update on your speech tomorrow and their responses. It has not crossed my mind to give a speech to talk about my stutter or stutter in general. Thanks for sharing that.

[blkorchid]

Thank you for the welcome Standingtall. I'm sorry to hear that you also had to go through a difficult time with a teacher. Today my speech went well. I didn't have any disfluencies, but I talked REALLY fast. It took me 5 mins. and 32 secs. to give a 8 minute speech. I was a little worried that my my audience were not able to understand my words, but a few of my classmates said that they understood every word of it. So, again, it went well. Now I have to prepare for my next speech.

[Standingtall]

Thank you for the update Tanya. That is great your speech went real well, and did you take any questions afterwards! I am just curious to hear any feed back on your topic and maybe you were asked why you choose 'stuttering' as a topic. Once again, thanks for the feedback.

[opher7]

Welcome Tonya. : ) Glad your speech went well--I also had to take a presentational speaking class last fall and from the start of college was apprehensive about it. Fortunately the professor was very nice and understood my dilemma completely. Although I went over the time limit on my first speech (because I was trying to speak slowly and do a breathing technique), as the semester progressed I became more comfortable with the format and got an A for the class. Talking with the professor about my "dilemma" made us good friends and last semester he wound up writing a letter of recommendation on my behalf for a scholarship. Keep up the good work! Hope you aren't getting too much rain!

-A Houstonian

[Hans]

Tanya, I'm struck by how photogenic you are. Wellcome to the forum. Public speaking is full of terror for most people, stutter or no stutter. Knowing this, that everyone feels the fear with me......... doesn't make a scrap of difference.