yourself out there. You have to fail. You have to come to grips with the fact that, yes, while you have a stutter, there's nothing wrong with you. It's perfectly normal." It's a hard message, but I think this is where the SLP's come in. It's a slow process, it changes for everybody. They're on their own journey. They have to find their own way with some help.


When I was in school (I went to a small, private school), they were concerned about me. I know they cared for me and I know they loved me, but they did the exact wrong thing. They would skip over me in class. They would let me slide. That's just not the right thing either. I had a few teachers in high school, I had one in high school, and then I had one in college who challenged me to step out of my comfort zone. I'm telling you, I was mad as I could be at them then.


"Why won't you let me skate? Why won't you let me get by with this?" But they had the confidence in me to let me fail, almost to the point of where they made me fail. I worship them to this day. It's tough but you can't let it hide inside you.


S: I think that's such an important message for SLP's and parents to understand, the importance of allowing someone to "fail.” Really to face it, and I think a lot of the attempts by SLP's to “save,” or keep clients “safe” by solely providing strategies and reinforcing that fluency is more important—actually keeps people from getting to the ease that they can enjoy with communication by facing it.


A teen asks, “I noticed you don't say your name until the end of the book. Was there a specific reason you waited until the end? Because saying your name is one of the most important things we have to say, even though we can try to avoid it, we can't. I struggle with it. Does this have anything to do with why you kept it until the end of the book?"


V: It's got everything to do with it. Saying my name was my albatross. At the start of school each year, I would start going into sweats, about the middle of August. School would start the first of September, I'd start worrying about it in August because I knew the teachers would say, "Okay, everybody stand-up, tell us your name. Tell us your brother and sister’s names. What your pet is, and what you did this summer." I'd have rather been whipped 40 lashes than do that.


I always knew that that was going to be a culmination of the book. I didn't know how I was going to get there, but I knew that would be the culmination of the book. I had to be careful with my editors, because I didn't want anybody to think that on the first day of school in the seventh grade, Victor Vollmer got up and he said,


"There is no magic pill. You have to have courage, you have to put yourself out there. You have to fail."


"My name is Victor Vollmer, and I'm cured." Or anything like that. I wanted it to be where he stuttered but he was willing to stutter, and he knew he had to stutter to start on his journey.


S: There's a question here from a school-based SLP. "I find that as an SLP in the public schools, many teachers need support in understanding how to support students who they have who stutter in a way that helps them embrace stuttering, rather than allow them to hide inside. I struggle to support my teachers in this effort, I'm happy to share this book to help them see your story. Thank you, but any advice for me?"


V: Well, I get that question quite a bit, and I wish I was smarter than I am. My advice is when a teacher learns that they have a student who stutters, if they could go to that student, and say, "I want you to be comfortable in my class, because I know you are not going to learn if you're not comfortable. So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to call on you just like everybody else, but while I want you to challenge yourself, if there is a day and you are overwhelmed, and you feel like you just can't handle it, just give me a sign. Or just wave me off, and then I'll go onto somebody else. But I'm not going to stop calling on you. I want you to challenge yourself."


And then, you make sure they know that it is guaranteed that no one in the class is going to laugh at them. I think that's about the only way to handle it.


From Top: Vince Vawter, 8, at the typewriter in his childhood home in Memphis; Vince speaking to a group of readers.


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