Check out what we’ve been up to:
Call for submissions for ISAD 2024!!
This year, our co-director Nicole has joined the ISAD team and designed the logo for the theme “The Power of Listening”. Listening helps us build trust, and better understand other people’s situations and feelings. We all want to be heard and feel validated, getting full attention. Also stuttering is directly affected by the behavior of our listener.
What are your experiences as a person who stutters, and what advice would you like to give to your listener? Parents, what are your experiences on listening, struggles and good practice? SLPs, what are your thoughts on listening in the therapy room, but also to be listened to by the school staff, politicians, money for research, etc? Kids and teens, what advice do you have for parents, siblings, teachers and friends and how do you want people to listen to you?
What does The Power of Listening mean to you? Write or record something, use audio and/or video, share research and presentations, submit drawings and poems. For directions on how to submit go to www.isad.live All submissions must be emailed to isad@isad.live
Myspeech is starting a project for this year's National Stuttering Awareness Week (NSAW 2023). We are lighting America up Sea Green for Stuttering!! Together, we will light up our town halls, city halls, bridges, and other landmarks to spread stuttering awareness.
Community advocacy is critical to destigmatizing stuttering, and the less stigma there is around stuttering, the more free PWS are to participate fully and show up as themselves--stutter and all. It can be especially transformational to help orchestrate these advocacy efforts. We hope you join us!
If you'd like to be part of this national project, fill out the form below, or scan the QR code on the flyer! We will be in touch with each volunteer to guide them in the process.
Sea Green for Stuttering!
Myspeech and Spero Stuttering Inc. - Bridging the gap of accessibility together
"When two organizations maximize their strengths and collaborate together, wonderful things happen!"
We are SO excited to announce that we have partnered with Spero Stuttering to create a searchable database of Ally of Stuttering SLPs!
These SLPs are dedicated individuals who are passionate about stuttering, have invested their professional development in stuttering, involved in the stuttering community, and committed to continuing their education at regular intervals.
Check it out on the Myspeech App~
We are SO excited to announce the official launch of our App! Our platform offers people who stutter connections to affordable speech therapists, virtual events, educational videos, and a community network.
We’ve been working for months collecting resources for people who stutter, allies, parents, SLPs, and just anyone who wants to learn more about stuttering.
Myspeech App is officially on the App Store!
POTUS Recognizes Myspeech and $75,000 Grand Prize Harvard Social Impact Award
We were so honored to be selected as the $75k Social Impact Category Grand Prize winner of the Harvard President's Innovation Challenge. And, to our distinct surprise, President Larry Bacow read a letter from President Joe Biden in celebration of our work.
Thank you to President Biden, your recognition of our efforts means the world.
We are ecstatic to receive such enthusiastic support for our mission to change the lives of millions of people who stutter around the world.
But the job isn’t finished. To us, this is just the beginning.
National Poetry Month.
SSA is celebrating National Poetry Month this April 2022. Click the image to check out posts from PWS and fluent allies over on our Instagram page!
Why is it ok to stutter?
You have likely heard from a variety of people and places that “it is ok to stutter,” and the very framing of the sentence, one of reinforcement and assurance, implies the opposite notion also.
So why is it ok to stutter?
Has anyone ever asked you that?
Or what is the opposite of stuttering?
Suppressing.
We suppress who we are and express what we think society will applaud and reward. But we don’t say what we think, or what we want, when we most want to say it. Eventually the false fronts, performance measures, and superficial standards lie heavy on the soul. Those burdens break us down, and they have challenged us to seek better solutions.
We believe the answers lie within ourselves.
The Stuttering Scholarship Alliance celebrates April as National Poetry Month with a journey of investigation and creation to bring forward what dwells in our hearts, through our minds, and into a global conversation free from fluency.
Language liberates because it gives us agency to construct the world we dream about, informed by the life we have already lived. We imagine new ways of loving and listening, where ears thirst for the sound of our hearts, attending to the content of the message and the soul of the speaker.
The Stuttering Scholarship Alliance is a student-founded organization consisting mostly of undergraduate- and graduate-level students and volunteers. We say that we are not only preparing people who stutter for the world, but also -- and just as importantly -- preparing the world for people who stutter.
Our primary focus is reducing financial barriers to ethical stuttering treatment by connecting people who stutter to affirming therapy. We also work to amplify a more dignified ethic of care found in client-centered therapy.
Overall, our work is to better educate society about stuttering, which is traditionally viewed as a disorder of speech, as opposed to a communication difference that isn’t tolerated or appreciated in most cultures, systems, or structures.
The prevailing notion that listeners should not be burdened by hearing stuttered speech is actually the disabling force we seek to resolve.
We invite you to join us and help us create a new language of liberation so that every person, in every nation, can proudly provide an answer when and if they are asked: Why is it ok to stutter?
Nathan Mallipeddi featured in The Harvard Crimson.
SSA’s founder and Chairman is an incredible young man on a serious mission to change the world.
Oh yeah, and he’s a full-time medical student at Harvard as well.
His experience as a PWS and advocate for the stuttering community is featured in The Harvard Crimson. Check it out!
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We are allies for people who stutter (PWS)
Myspeech is powered by volunteers who share our mission of providing a bridge to access for people who stutter. One of the facets of this metaphorical bridge is destigmatizing stuttering within our broader culture. The less stuttering is stigmatized, the easier it is for stutterers to navigate the world and pursue their dreams.
One of our incredible volunteers, Lulu Arteaga Baeza, put out a call for ally videos and created this compilation of allies declaring their support for people who stutter. We hope that this video feels like a warm hug for PWS, and inspires more allies to stand up in support of this community.