Speech Therapy and School

At the age of five I attended speech therapy for the first time. When we arrived I was shown to a little children's play area while my parents talked to the speech therapist, a man in his forties. I was unsure as to where we were and was listening carefully to the conversation. It soon became clear that they were talking about my speech, he must be a speech doctor I thought, I didn't know there were speech therapists at that point. After about fifteen minutes I was called over and the therapist asked me various questions. As my parents were there I felt comfortable and safe and answered fluently. The speech therapist said something like "he sounds all right to me". I was thinking, put me in Jean's dining room without my parents there etc and see how I am then.

Going to the speech therapist confirmed to me what I had always feared, I had a problem with my speech. The problem is very strange however as I don't always stutter. So I thought about the situations where I did. Pressure, feeling uncomfortable, meeting new people, these were the situations which I had convinced myself would make me stutter, so I thought I just won't speak if I feel pressure or if I feel uncomfortable or if I meet new people. No longer did I put my hand up in class to ask or answer questions, I didn't volunteer to be in any school plays, became less sociable and in general probably spoke a quarter the words a fluent person would.

Also at this age I became quite clever, I was aware that I found b,d,g,k and v words harder to say than other words. "B" words were especially hard so what I started to do was to substitute the "b" word to another word. For example "where do you live?" Instead of answering "Birmingham" I would answer "West Midlands". I soon became an expert at this and could think of the substitute word at the drop of a hat. This helped my speech to improve and people around me assumed that the problem had been eradicated, however I knew the truth. Having an older brother and sister I was aware that pressure at school would increase and that when I was in junior school, I would be made to read out of school books and to answer questions etc. These fears were realised in junior school, reading out of text books was especially difficult.

For example in a lesson like English, the teacher would say something like, "today class I would like each of you in turn to read out of the book on your desks starting with Abbott". As we were chosen in alphabetical order I worked out that I was going to have to read ninth. I then counted down the paragraphs hoping that the ninth would be a short paragraph. I would then check which words I would have to read, hoping there were none of my difficult words in there, such as "b" words. By the time it was my turn to read I would be a complete nervous wreck and was virtually guaranteed to stutter.

The classes response was mixed to hearing me stutter, some of course laughed but at this age my best friend was one of the strongest children in the school and anybody who laughed at me, he would hit. People soon realised to keep quiet.

The stutter and it's effects became more serious when moving to senior school, mainly because my best friend decided to attend a different school from me. During the six weeks school holiday between leaving the junior school and starting the senior, I had a lot of time to think. At that time in my life I was a negative thinker and was thinking:

1. At the junior school, I knew all the teachers and most of the pupils, at the new school I will have to meet a lot of new people (teachers and pupils).

2. I felt very comfortable in the junior school, I knew where everything was situated and it was quite a small school. The new school is around ten times bigger, I won't know where the art block is for example and I'm not very good at asking for directions. In the junior school, I was one of the oldest and tallest. In the senior school I will be one of the youngest and smallest. I therefore will probably feel uncomfortable in the new school.

3. There will be more pressure at the new school, the work will be harder, you hear all the stories of people having their heads flushed down the toilet or their money stolen from the older pupils.

These thoughts made me extremely worried and nervous about the future. The first day of senior school turned out to be a nightmare. After being split into three classes we were shown to our form rooms. Then a confident and smiling man (our form teacher) entered the room and proceeded to welcome us into our new school.

He then introduced himself and then to my horror said "as most of you don't know each other, I would like you each in turn to stand up and say your name and tell us which junior school you were at previously". This was not a good start and predictably when it was my turn to speak, I stuttered. People knew straight away about my speech impediment, some laughed and I now had to face this on my own as my best friend from the previous school was no longer around to help.

I had to grow up quickly but soon became quite depressed and my five years in senior school were by far the worst years in my life with stupid comments from certain adults not helping such as "these are the best days of your life so enjoy them". This statement was apparently supposed to make me feel better!

Various days stick in my mind from school but by far the worst day was when I was around fourteen years of age. I was in a science class and we had just had a test. The teacher said "to mark this test, I want each of you in turn to stand up, read out the question, and then tell us the answer".

They started on the front row of which there were four people, the second row had three, and I was the third person on the third row, therefore I would have to read out question ten. I scanned down to the question and to my dismay there was a "b" word in the question. Typically I stuttered when attempting to read the question and various people in the class began to laugh. I put my head in my hands to avoid seeing their joyful faces and then started to think, why have I got this problem when everyone is fluent? Why does everyone laugh? Will I always have this stutter? The laughter seemed to last for ages and eventually I looked up at the teacher, hoping he would help by controlling the class but to my disgust he was laughing himself.

I decided that after taking my GCSE's that the best thing I could do was to leave school and to try and find employment. I left school at sixteen after passing seven GCSE's Grade C and above. People were shocked at my decision, especially my family and asked me why I was leaving, I didn't feel able to tell them the truth and stated that I wanted to earn some money etc.