The Journey Continues

by Stephen Goedhart

I have been a person who stutters my whole life. Many people who know me will probably be surprised to learn about this. It is because I use my speech targets – also known as skills – while I speak and thus will come across as speaking fluently. I went through a few stages in my life. A stage when I was covert about my stuttering I would change words, change topics, and avoid people. In the next stage I received therapy, joined a speech group and focused on applying my targets and learned to deal with my speech in all situations. At the current stage, I have accepted myself and wish to help those who are in need of support.

It was very difficult dealing with my speech through elementary school. I would change words, change topics and be reluctant to go to school on days when we had oral reading. Those days terrified me. I was so concerned about how everyone perceived me when I read aloud. I was so self-conscious. Continue reading “The Journey Continues”

2015 Ottawa Race Weekend: Remembering Norm McEwen and Marie Poulos

Marie Poulos
Marie Poulos

 

Norm and members of the 2012 Race Weekend Team
Norm and members of the 2012 Race Weekend

The Ottawa Race Weekend is one of Canada’s premier race events and takes place every year near the end of May. The  above photo shows Norm McEwen with some of the 2012 team members from the Stuttering Treatment Clinic.

Standing tall as always among others, Norm was a long time advocate for people who stutter in Ottawa and across Canada.  For years he was a Board member of the Canadian Association of People Who Stutter (now known as the Canadian Stuttering Association CSA). He was also a founding member of the Ottawa Association of People Who Stutter (OAPWS).In addition, as the photo reflects, for many years Norm and other OAPWS members along with the team at the Clinic in Ottawa took part in the Ottawa Race Weekend under the banner of the Ottawa Hospital’s Run For A Reason campaign.

Team members raised money for the Marie Poulos Bursary Fund. This fund provides Ontario residents with financial assistance to take intensive and semi-intensive therapy programs at the Clinic. This Clinic is located at the Ottawa Hospital’s Rehab Centre.

This Year’s Ottawa Race Weekend

Once again members of our team will be running and walking in various events. But this year without Norm. Norm died unexpectedly last fall. To say that he was loved by many and that he is greatly missed is an understatement.

This year the Clinic’s “Let’s Talk About Stuttering” team is fundraising in memory of Norm. Continue reading “2015 Ottawa Race Weekend: Remembering Norm McEwen and Marie Poulos”

The First Time I Met Norm

As many of you know, Norm McEwen died unexpectedly last fall. This year the “Talking About Stuttering” team at the Stuttering Treatment Clinic in Ottawa is fundraising in the 2015 Ottawa Race Weekend in memory of Norm.

I will always remember the first time I met Norm. Not an auspicious encounter for what later became a very close friendship. In 1997 Norm was attending a Canadian Association of People Who Stutter conference in Vancouver along with several other individuals from Ottawa including my future wife, Tania Kamienski.

I was living in West Vancouver at the time, in fact, two blocks from the hotel where the conference was taking place. Tania and I had gotten together the fall before in Ottawa and this was the first time she was visiting me in Vancouver.

Being a romantic, I wanted to impress Tania by greeting her at the hotel with a huge bouquet of flowers. I went to the reception desk. There was no Tania Kamienski registered. Tania had assured me she was attending the conference.  Had she lied? Was she laying me astray?

Fretting around the lobby, I heard a familiar sound. The sound of someone stuttering. I must be in the right place. The person speaking was, as I later learned, Norm McEwen. Being a very perceptive individual, I concluded he must be attending the conference and perhaps knew Tania.

Continue reading “The First Time I Met Norm”

OAPWS Talks to First Year U of Ottawa Speech-Language Pathology Students

I had the pleasure (and public speaking now is a pleasure, believe it or not) to be a part of the threesome from the OAPWS that spoke to the first-year speech-language pathology students at the University of Ottawa.

For the third year, Mrs. Lynn Metthe, who not only instructs and advises the first-year speech-language students, but also is an accomplished speech path that has put into practice what she teaches, had asked the OAPWS for some of our members to speak to her class.

We have found that speaking to her students benefits everyone. We benefit by having the opportunity to speak off-the-cuff to a group of strangers, and about a topic we care deeply about; namely stuttering. Continue reading “OAPWS Talks to First Year U of Ottawa Speech-Language Pathology Students”

SUPPORT PEOPLE WHO STUTTER BY SPONSORING OUR TEAM IN THE 2013 OTTAWA RACE WEEKEND

OAPWS is participating in the 2013 Ottawa Race Weekend as members of the Stuttering Treatment Clinic Team. This event is one of Canada’s most prestigious race events of the year and takes place on May 25h & 26th. The Team is under the umbrella of the Ottawa Hospital Foundation’s (OHF) “Run For A Reason” campaign.

Money we raise will go directly to the Marie Poulos Bursary Fund which enables teens and adults attend speech therapy programs at the Stuttering Treatment Clinic. This clinic is located at the Rehab Centre of the Ottawa General Hospital and is only one of three such facilities in Canada to offer semi-intensive and intensive therapy programs for individuals who stutter.

The bursary fund is named in honour of Marie Poulos, a speech–language pathologist who worked at the Clinic from 1979 until she was tragically killed in a car accident in 1991. Several members of OAPWS actually knew Marie in the 1990s and can testify first hand what a wonderful speech therapist she was.

You can help us reach our goal of raising $5000 by sponsoring our team. Continue reading “SUPPORT PEOPLE WHO STUTTER BY SPONSORING OUR TEAM IN THE 2013 OTTAWA RACE WEEKEND”

Ottawa Library Presentation: Talking About Stuttering

On Saturday April 27, 2013 members of the Ottawa Association of People Who Stutter will give a presentation titled Talking About Stuttering at the Nepean Centrepointe Branch of the Ottawa Public Library.

Members will discuss causes of and common misconceptions related to stuttering, current therapy options for children and adults and helpful suggestions for concerned parents. The presentation will take place from 11:00-12:30.

You can register for this program online by going to the library’s program site here.

To register online you will be asked to input your library card no.

You can also register by calling 613-580-2710

We especially encourage parents who are concerned about their children’s stuttering to attend. OAPWS members will also be available after the presentation to discuss any concerns people may have or to learn more about our group.

How should a person react when they meet someone who stutters? Continue reading “Ottawa Library Presentation: Talking About Stuttering”