| Children can develop a stammer at an early age and | | | | house.At Jean's house they ate in a dining room |
| for the parents it can be a very worrying time. It is | | | | around a dining table. There were a lot of people |
| difficult to know what to do. Parents wonder if it is just | | | | around the table who I did not know very well and |
| an age thing or just a phase. They think about whether | | | | eating in front of them all itself made me feel quite |
| to take their child to some form of speech therapy, | | | | uncomfortable. During the meal people were asking |
| however worry that that might be an over-reaction.I | | | | me various questions and for whatever reason, I found |
| myself developed a stammer at the age of four or | | | | it difficut to answer and started stammering. This was |
| five. My mother had left work to look after me when I | | | | the first day of my life as a stammerer.My parents a |
| was born and I started to talk as normal. Everything | | | | few months later took me to speech therapy, the |
| was fine until I started school. My mother who now | | | | speech therapist advised them that most children will |
| had more time on her hands decided to re-start work | | | | grow out of stammering. I continued unfortunately to |
| and I would now be going to a friend of the families | | | | stammer until I was twenty two.Stammering affected |
| after school. This friend was called Jean and she had | | | | every decision I ever made and was constantly on my |
| a son my age called Graham. On the first day I spent | | | | mind. Having a stammer made obtaining work, |
| at her house everything was going well until Jean | | | | relationships and socialising very difficult and at times I |
| called us in for our evening meal. Meal times at my | | | | became very depressed.Stephen HillStephen Hill has |
| own house were a very relaxed affair, we were able | | | | overcome a stammer and now helps other people to |
| to eat our food wherever we wanted to in the | | | | achieve fluency. |