New Job and New Horizons....

It's been a while. Sorry guys! So, new topic .... Speech Therapy. And it's not quite what you think. I am not TAKING or IN Speech Therapy, rather I am giving/doing Speech Therapy! I am currently employed as a Speech Language Assistant at a public elementary school and a catholic elementary school in my hometown. I started work last Wednesday, August 24th. Everyone seems nice and welcoming so far at my school and out of all the SLPs I have met so far (Speech Language Pathologists).

I am currently looking over IEPs (Individualized Education Plans), the child's case history form, so to speak, and trying to make a schedule of when I should pull out the kids from their classrooms, and which ones I should group together based on age and disability.

So, I've been doing a lot of reading and writing (summarizing their speech and language goals for the year), and I feel so professional!

I am so proud and happy to have this job. I am also very blessed. I give all the credit to my Higher Power, God, because none of this would have happened without Him. None!

I am making really good money and I have good hours - 8 am-3:30pm.

But one little story I wanna share with you is, when I met the school psychologist, I was a little put off by his response to the way I said my name. When I introduced myself to him and said, "Hi, I'm Ch-ch-ch-christine," he responded, "I can see why are you doing this job."  ..... Excuse me?!!! And you are a psychologist, ... shouldn't you have sympathy and understanding of those with disabilities? Hmm... just curious.

But, despite that little speedbump, all is well, I like my job so far, and I can't wait to start seeing little kiddos!!!

Thanks for reading! Good day to you.

Can a PWS recover from stuttering?

I have talked to a few PWS about recovering from stuttering. I once read about a man who called himself a recovered or recovering stutterer. Then, in an interview with Pam Mertz, a wonderful lady who stutters herself and has her own blog, when she asked me why I got into Speech Language Pathology, I told her I wanted to help children or adults who stutter accept and recover from their stuttering. She then asked me what I meant by "recover," and I told her that I think one can recover from stuttering by coming to the point in their lives where they can accept their stutter and who they are as a person who stutters. Later, in a skype chat with fellow PWS, one man told me that in the medical field "recover" refers to the state of being that one has overcome or regained full functioning or even was cured from a disease or disability that was inflicting them. Thus, he concluded that since there is no cure for stuttering, a PWS cannot recover from stuttering. This fellow PWS made a good point, and I am beginning to reconsider my thoughts on this topic. What does the term "recover" really mean? Does it mean that you become fluent? Or could it just mean that you have come to the state of mind that you completely accept yourself and your stutter and are thus able to better manage your stutter, your behaviors, thoughts, and emotions?
I welcome any comments on this topic, as I am very interested in it.
Until next time.... Thanks!

Painting, Painting, All Day Long

I paint, I paint, I paint all day
I want to go, but I have to stay

The paint fumes waft up my nose
Not as pretty smelling as a red, red rose

Stuck in a muggy building, the sweat drips down
And a clean rag to wipe my sweat cannot be found

It is now lunchtime
I only have a yogurt, carrots and a lime

I lay the drop cloths and set up the ladder
But as soon as I lay on the paint, it begins to splatter

.... and that's all I got now.

I'm out!

Causes of Stuttering, What do you think?

     To all my PWS out there, and for those of you who might know a bit about stuttering and would like to add your opinions, what do YOU think could be the cause of stuttering. Or what is YOUR theory on the cause of stuttering? Personally, I think it is physiological and psychological. Physiological in the sense that we all know that our speech muscles in our face, and in our throat or larynx, tend to tense up and are not in sync with each other when we begin to produce a sound. Timing is also off between our fast thinking and mouth muscles -- basically, we think too fast for our words. And psychologically, because, in my own experience, I remember my speech being much worse in high school when my self-esteem was pretty low and I was struggling with anxiety and depression. I didn't know which one caused the other. Did my stuttering make me more anxious, or was my hereditary anxiety and depression causing me to stutter more because I was letting my negative thoughts diminish my self-image which consequently affected my speech? I remember becoming more outgoing my first year or two of college and my stuttering slowly dissipated or lessened. Was I just maturing? Was I becoming more confident?
     I once talked with a fluency specialist and speech pathology professor at IU Bloomington who told me that recent research showed that stuttering is caused my linguistics -- or the way we learn our words, vocabulary, grammar, and so forth. I still don't fully understand this viewpoint, and I'm interested in learning more about it. But, how could the way I was taught language have affected my speech? I'm sure my parents and teachers taught me grammar, vocabulary, and names of objects the same way they taught my siblings or their students.
    So for anyone reading this now, I'd like to hear your opinion on the matter. What do YOU think has been the cause of your stuttering or the stutter of someone you know? What makes you block or stutter or more on one day compared to the next?
    Thanks and until next time. :)

I am Person Who Stutters (PWS)

Hello all,

My name is Christine Dits and I am a Person Who Stutters (PWS). It has been a while since I last posted in this blog. But I am back! I recently returned from the National Stuttering Association (NSA) conference held in Fort Worth, Texas this year. This was my second conference and I had a great time! I met a lot of new people who stutter and reunited with old friends who stuttered. I went to some really good workshops and even had the wonderful opportunity to hear David Seidler, the screenwrite of The King's Speech, speak at the keynote presentation. Now that I am back home I miss my stutter buddies tremendously. I would go back in a heartbeat! I want the next convention, held in Florida, to come fast! But I have to wait another year. That is okay, because I plan on staying in touch with all the PWS from the conference.

This blog post will be short, because at the moment I do not have a whole lot to say, but I would like to just inform you all on stuttering in general, since there are many people out there who do not know a whole lot about stuttering. Stuttering is a sort of enigma.

Stuttering is a communicative disorder and disability. It affects about 1% of the population. There is no known cure for stuttering, nor is there a known cause. However, recent research shows that stuttering is genetic in 9% of the population of people who stutter. There are some medications that have researched for stuttering that will hopefully help those who stutter become more fluent. In addition, a side note, for every 4 males who stutter, there is 1 female who stutters.

There are many different types of stuttering. A stutter can also be referred to as a block. A block happens when one silently stutters on a sound, or the sound is just caught in their throat or on their tongue, and they cannot produce the sound. A stutter is more overt and can be heard. People who stutter can have mild, moderate or severe stutters. I personally have a mild to moderate stutter. But more on the mild side I would say. My stutter takes on the form of repeating the beginnings of words, blocking on certain sounds from time to time, and getting stuck in the middle of a word, but finally pushing through it. Some people show visual signs of stuttering, in addition to their stuttered speech, which are called secondary characteristics. So, people may scrunch up their face, produce a sort of tremor on their lips and mouth, sound like they are out of breath, which they usually are, or jerk their heads up or to the side. Some people also are barely intelligible; I have only met two people who could barely get ANY word or sound out or who just stumbled on all their words and were not understood at all. I have a lot of sympathy for those people, but they are also very courageous to even attempt to speak at all.

And I will just end by giving some tips to those who are fluent, do not stutter, when talking to those who do stutter. First, don't assume that we are nervous, we are not. Do not tell us to slow down, take a breath, or start over. You can ask us to repeat what we said, but that is also hard for us as well. Understand that we become emotionally exhausted at the end of the day by all the thinking of words to avoid and how to speak and by just speaking in general. In my opinion, stuttering is also a very psychosocial disorder. I know there are other theories as to what area or part of the body or mind causes stuttering, but in my experience, I believe stuttering can be rather psychological. In high school, I had rather low self-esteem and suffered from anxiety and depression, which worsened my stutter. Once I was able to gain more confidence, mature, and get a hold of my rampant emotions, as well as change my thinking and perspective on stuttering, I became more fluent. In addition, it is VERY important for a PWS to accept their stuttering and not let it define who they are. This often takes a long time to do. They say that the first step to recover is acceptance.

Well, it looks like this blog was not short after all. Ha!

I hope you all learned something from this post and I hope to hear your comments on this issue. Or any experiences you have had with stuttering.

Until next time, ...

Proud Stutterer,
  Christine

Job Searching!

So it's been a little over a month since I started job searching. I'm going to defer graduate school for a year, that is, if I even get in, and go work in the public schools as a Speech Language Assistant for a year!

I've already had three informational interviews, all of which went really well. I also have three job shadowing days set up to observe SLPs working with young children in the schools. I'm excited about this!

The people at South Bend Schools that met with me were very nice, and the one man, Chuck, told me that he was very impressed with me (my manners, eye contact, etc.). And then, of course, I added, ... "Oh, and I'm bilingual too." Just to impress them more. :))

But I'm feeling confident about everything and I'm ready to start applying soon.
Wish me luck!!

Christine

SpringTime Poem

spring flowers are budding
i have a physio test today
i hope someday i can stop shoulding
hopefully i can get my way on this test today

can't wait for drinks and apps with mom tonight
as well as hannah's lovely dances in the moonlight tonight

the weekend is upon us
let's embrace it as best we can
relaxing in the sun is a must
and hopefully i can get a tan!

Almost to the End

It's almost the end of my last semester at Saint Mary's College! I can't believe it! It's going so fast, but I'm also glad to be done with homework! The bad news is that I have two more classes to take this summer at IUSB. The good news is that one of them is visual technology Art. And the other is Chemistry. mmerrr...

I also am making some new friends this semester and wished I could have met them much earlier in my 4 years here. That's okay. They both live pretty close to me.

So far classes are going okay. The hardest one I have is Physio Psychology. Uh! The professor is hard, he talks in run-on sentences and has pretty convoluted and lengthy notes. It's hard to study for his tests and they are sooo unpredictable! I wish I took Development Psychology where I could have spent more time with the kids at ECDC. That's okay. I'm almost done and I'm finally getting the hang of this class. Too bad that couldn't have happened earlier in the semester.

I'm also sooo glad it's finally spring!! It's beautiful out! I'm spending more time outside reading and walking.

Anyways... all is good, but I have to go to Personality Psychology now!!

Be back soon for more updates. Next blog will be about "Job Searching." Fun stuff!