Lots of stories and links about stuttering from this past week.

Pam has posted over at Make Room for the Stuttering about an unfortunate turn of events at a recent meeting.

I shared this with some friends in a Facebook group and they asked me how I responded. I didn’t respond – I said nothing as I didn’t want to draw any attention to how embarrassed I felt.

I’m a pretty nice guy, but yeah, seriously, anytime anybody ever asks me if I’ve forgotten my name or some simple piece of information that I’m stuttering on, I want to punch them in the face.

I’m getting salty in my old age — I wonder if I wouldn’t have put that person in their place.

University of Iowa Summer Camp helps those who stutter.

He began enrolling in speech therapy twice a week for 20 minutes and made progress, but nothing has helped like the intensive one-on-one treatment he gets at the nine-day camp offered by the UI clinic. Therapists work with children for five hours daily — far more treatment than they would receive at school.

It has built up his confidence and helped him realize other children have similar difficulties. It’s helped his mother feel less alone, too.

And yes, I’m sure there are other camps around the country like this. I just happened across this one and started to wonder if my life would have turned out differently had I gone to a summer camp while growing up.

The American Institute of Stuttering had its 8th Annual Gala and handed out its Freeing Voices Changing Lives Award. The awards went to Jack Welch and Jes Staley. Vice President Joe Biden honored the gentlemen.

Both the Vice President and Jack Welch shared personal stories of their stuttering and how their mothers helped them overcome criticism in their lives. Each encouraged her son to meet their speech challenge head-on and echoed a similar message – “Stuttering does not define you.”

Here’s a video of Vice President Biden talking about his stutter — and how you shouldn’t let stuttering define who you are.

I get this, I really do. I think there are two parts to it though. One, that we should carry on with our lives and push through our stutter. Become more confident, find techniques that work, seek help when needed. Carry on with our lives and careers despite it. But the second thing is that well, some people should let this define them. Listen, if you asked me if I would like to be paid (as a regular job) to talk about stuttering and spread the word and educate people about it full time, I’d say yes. I’d say yes now, but maybe a few years ago I wouldn’t. Because while it can’t define most people, someone’s gotta take the lead in helping and educating.

When I first saw this video and saw Mr. Biden talking about practicing classic works, I thought, well, you know what, I can spend hours alone in my car saying my name and every word in the dictionary without any stutter at all. But then I realized, well, there’s more than just that. If I’m driving to an interview, I practice some responses out loud. Over and over again. I get used to the words coming out of my mouth. I hear what I might trip up on. I try to say things in a different way. I can pay more attention to my breathing. Does all this practicing always work? Of course not. I get nervous and forget to breathe just like any other interaction. But the preparation does help. It adds just a little dose of confidence that wasn’t there before, and sometimes that’s all it takes.

I’m not terribly afraid of public speaking per se, but doing something like comedy — where timing is key — does scare the crap out of me. But there are those out there doing it:

The people with the death wish are the people who are terrified of public speaking, but choose stand-up as a way to tackle their fear. Brian Baltosiewich, senior marketing producer at WBTV, grew up with a stutter and has performed at The Comedy Zone.

“Once I got into my career, I knew I’d have to do something to get out in front of it,” he said. “It’s the communication business and I have to communicate. I wanted to do something that was really going to scare the crap out of me. To speak in front of a crowd with my own material, not knowing how they would react, I thought that would shock me into being OK with myself and my stutter.”

Here’s a nice article about someone who had success with the McGuire program. Just a note — I have no experience with any stuttering-help programs or products. Tom over at Stuttering Brain does a much better job of reviewing them. But we’re all different — what may work for some may not work for all.

The word “Daysaver” proved so problematic that she would often overpay for a bus ticket to avoid saying it. She would also spend half an hour looking for tricky-sounding items in a supermarket, rather than asking where they were.

Oh, the countless hours I’ve spent wandering around Home Depot instead of just asking someone. This gets harder when you have kids — because they ask you — ‘can’t we just ask someone?’

Lastly, fellow stutterer and expat Geraint at Penguin Ponderings is talking about how he ended up in Saudi to begin with.