Brittney is a born and bred Invercargill girl who studied Speech and Language Pathology at the University of Canterbury, graduating in 2012. She worked for the Ministry of Education in Invercargill and Wellington, before heading to the UK to work as a locum speech language therapist.
Last year, our organisation sent out an appeal to raise $7,200 to help 10 Kiwi kids access treatment for stuttering. Mike Pollock, CEO of Ricoh, and former START Board Member reached out to us and generously offered to contribute 50% towards our goal.
Although nearly everyone knows the word, unless you are a person who stutters, there can be a number of myths and misconceptions surrounding what a stutter really is.
n April Janelle Irvine completed ten years of service to the stuttering community through her work at START. Janelle commenced work as a Speech Language Therapist (SLT) at START in 2009.
Here at START we are so grateful for the support we receive from you all. Every blog you read, Facebook post you like, and email you open is appreciated by all of us; staff and Board alike. We also greatly appreciate the support of old friends of START, being people who supported us for many years as Board members, volunteers, past team members and past clients.
Why speaking differently can make your stutter disappear – If you are a person who stutters, you may or may not have noticed that when you put on an accent, or deliberately speak differently to how you might usually speak, that your stutter is less evident, or has even disappeared completely!
2018 was a momentous year for us at START – perhaps not so visible for an outsider, but behind the scenes there was a lot happening.
Is stuttering genetic? This is a question that is asked fairly regularly, however it doesn’t have a yes or no answer.