by Pat Badgley
Hi. Last Tuesday, which was International Stuttering Awareness Day (ISAD), I did a presentation about stuttering to my 6th grade class. Before the presentation I thought to myself that I really didn’t want to do this and just cancel it. My teachers must have read my mind because they told me that I would do just fine and soon it would be all over with.
It felt odd to do the report because I really had no clue what I would say about myself. During the report I kept a positive attitude and just kept on going. At the beginning of the presentation, I handed out a Stuttering Survey and gave the kids time to answer it. Then, I went over the answers with the kids and collected the surveys so I could count up their answers later. When I was done with the presentation, the whole class had tons of questions. It was fun to answer all of their questions. Even though I ran out of class time, the kids had even more questions after class during passing time.
Now I am glad that the presentation is over with. I feel good about it. I am glad my whole class knows more about stuttering. About that survey of the class, probably about half the class was right and half was close, but not right on. I would encourage all kids to plan a presentation and to follow through with it. When it’s over, you will feel really good about yourself and your class too. You will find out you don’t care that you stutter and, you will also find out that nobody else cares either.
Before my presentation, I contacted ISAD at Isad22oct@aol.com and Amy Johnson responded right away by sending me all five ISAD posters, some brochures, and a bunch of small ISAD 2002 posters for me to hand out to each kid in the class. My speech therapist helped me, too. She encouraged me to give the presentation and together we came up with an outline for the presentation. We used the FRIENDS Stuttering Presentation Guide. It was awesome! My speech therapist even videotaped my presentation.
Thanks for everything. See you at the next convention.