The Duluth Minnesota Chapter of the National Stuttering Association met on Wednesday, October 21th.
The group started out with introductions and catching up on each other’s lives. Derrick had been in Vermont the previous night meeting with Dr Barry Guitar and a few other members of the Vermont NSA Support Group, so he gave a verbal recap of the Vermont group, including discussing how individuals from their chapter have come into the CSD classroom to enhance students’ understanding of stuttering.
During the second half of the meeting, Kay talked about the “acting voice” and how some individuals have found increased fluency through acting. A number of these people have even gone on to become famous actors and actresses, including James Earl Jones, Emily Blunt, & Austin Pendleton. Kay had a couple of video clips lined up to show the group that lead to some interesting discussions.
The next meeting will be Wednesday, November 18th.
Here are a few links that were discussed during the October meeting:
Emily Blunts acceptance speech when she won the Freeing Voices, Changing Lives award from the American Institute for Stuttering at their 2009 Benefit Gala https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ2OUTns12I
Austin Pendleton on Stutter Talk http://stuttertalk.com/austin-pendleton-talks-about-stuttering-and-acting-episode-130/
Famous People who stutter:
http://www.stutteringhelp.org/famous-people-who-stutter