search.noResults

search.searching

note.createNoteMessage

search.noResults

search.searching

orderForm.title

orderForm.productCode
orderForm.description
orderForm.quantity
orderForm.itemPrice
orderForm.price
orderForm.totalPrice
orderForm.deliveryDetails.billingAddress
orderForm.deliveryDetails.deliveryAddress
orderForm.noItems
FORMER CORRESPONDENT EARNS PUBLIC SPEAKING AWARD


Our friend Isabelle, of Alexandria, VA., now 14 years old, was recently presented with the Santarelli Public Speaking Award. According to her 8th


grade language arts teacher at


Alexandria Country Day School, Meg Mosier, this award recognizes “a student who demonstrates the creativity, confidence and leadership required of an effective public speaker across all disciplines and settings.” The award is one earned cumulatively, beginning with speeches in first grade.


Quite an honor for Isabelle, who stutters. As she wrote in a letter to us in 2016, “I don’t like speaking and I don’t like to talk to other people unless they’re my family or friends. Overall I hate talking outside of my house.”


But she also shared at that time that she was “working in speech therapy to get out of her 'comfort zone'. Apparently, she succeeded!


Her final speech, Words Are Like Toothpaste, cautions us to think before we speak, whether we stutter or not, because, like toothpaste, once words are out, you can’t put them back in. So, “…you can squeeze all the way and make a mess…or think about how much you really need. The choice is up to you.” Pretty wise advice for all!


“It is said,” Ms. Mosier shared during her introduction to award-winner Isabelle, “that public speaking is the #1 fear …, with death coming in a close second.” If that is so, what is frightening for those of us who do not stutter, must be much more so for the person who stutters.


Isabelle


continued


her


commitment


grade language arts class “about her speech impediment and the article that had recently been published [in the Stuttering Foundation Newsletter] highlighting the work she has invested in overcoming it. She spoke with composure and candor…” her teacher said.


to getting out of her comfort zone by requesting to speak to her peers in the 7th


Among several speeches Isabelle made throughout the school year, we want to share a small portion of what she had to say in her The Trouble of Words speech. While discussing her stuttering, she says, “…Sure I talk to people, but it wasn’t always like that. There was a time I was afraid to speak because I was bullied. Every time I said something my bully always had something negative to say about my stutter, and it got me thinking more and more about why I should speak [at all].”


But in the closing of that speech she shares, “…I finally


is a part of who I am. I am someone decided stuttering Keep us posted, Isabelle! 29


who won’t wait around for change to happen – I will make the change…I will rise above and beyond to help other stutterers overcome their fear. Stuttering is something that has gotten me down many times before, and now I want to make that feeling go away. This is one part of my journey, and I finally realize that stuttering is okay…” We can see why she captivates her audience. Isabelle has courage in the face of vulnerability, and anyone, whether you stutter or not, can identify with that!


Isabelle will be a freshman at T.C.Williams High School this


fall. Of


course, don’t just look for her in the school halls, watch for her on TEDxTeen perhaps, or maybe, in a few years, she’ll be our President – if she has the time. Right now, in addition to being a student, she is a certified scuba diver, plays clarinet and piano, runs cross country, and, is a photographer. As she is fond of saying, “Just you wait…”


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39