Our clients have plenty of great things to say about our services

We have been so lucky to have some of the amazing people we have worked with leave us these testimonials. Here at START, we work hard to make sure everyone in New Zealand who stutters has access to therapy. If you’ve been thinking about getting help, now’s the time to take action, so you can see amazing results like these people have!

As stuttering is personal for everyone, some have elected to leave their names off their testimonial so that we may all respect their privacy.

Adult Testimonials

“Firstly it was all about ‘curing’ my stutter but gradually I understood that it’s not about getting rid of it but rather living with it in a positive manner and developing techniques to deal  with the stuttering moments before, during and after the stutter.  START has helped me mould myself into a more confident individual and has also given me the tools to deal with my stuttering.  And honestly I couldn’t have asked for better staff support.” – May 2016


I would really like to thank Voon for his help with my speech.  I’m sure the tools I have learnt will greatly help me in the future“ – Ifan Marasco

Parent Testimonials

“I would like to say how grateful Alistair, his father and I are for the great success the (Fluency and Confidence) course was. Alistair and I both very much enjoyed our three days with START and we both learned a lot. While Alistair already knew the (fluency technique), START has shown him how to take on responsibility for his own progress. He also learned how to structure his learning at home, use his tools in his daily life and the importance of regular practice. His highlights were meeting other kids who stutter, meeting the two adult ex START clients and becoming noticeably more fluent and confident.

The parent day was very well structured and many issues and how to deal with them became clearer to me. I very much liked that the pre-teens came from different backgrounds and I liked the fact that the staff: child ratio was very high due to having speech language therapy students involved. The students were a nice group of young enthusiastic people who connected well with the pre-teens.” – C. Glennie


“When we started we were expecting a “fix” or something to stop our child stuttering but throughout our experience we have learned to support and help our child to manage his speech without always focusing on his stuttering. Ultimately we wanted our child to be a confident speaker and he is well on his way to achieve that.” – Parent of a school aged child – Aug 2017


“Many people down-played Chloe’s stutter without understanding anything about it.  My husband agreed with others that it would get better on its own but as a Mum, when my daughter couldn’t speak a sentence and started to lose her bubbly confidence, I couldn’t [just] do nothing.  To understand the research and treatment options meant we could start to help Chloe and feel confident we were doing something proactive.  Through treatment we had ups and downs and it took much longer than I thought it would.  When the stuttering returned, I took it personally thinking I wasn’t doing the treatment right.  Now we are [at] the other side of treatment that feeling has turned to empowerment.  I know how to support Chloe to be stutter-free and that’s a great skill to have as Chloe’s mum” – Feb 2016