In this episode a 17 year old female who is a senior in high school completed The let’s Talk Fluency Program with Lori Melnitsky on zoom. From stuttering to Fluency and confidence. Mia talks about her stuttering journey and how she came to All Island Speech and Stuttering Therapy. Mia wants to be a nurse. Listen to her words, strategies, self talk and confidence. Mia worked with Lori Melnitsky virtually twice a week for 6 weeks. For more info please visit [email protected]

If you stutter there is hope. Your voice matters.

Listen to Lori explain easy onsets and what role they play in stuttering therapy. Lori explains why they are used. She is a speech pathologist who stuttered severely herself. She also explains using ends of words and gives you real life examples in her own speech.

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This is about how adult speech therapy changed my life.

It is important to intervene early and be positive. Listen why?

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Hi, and welcome to another episode of Stuttering the mystified and beyond This is Lori Melnitzki your host. I just wanted to talk about some things that are on my mind. I actually just got back from Florida visiting my parents who are older and I was just thinking as I was there and I was meeting a lot of different people how much I had to speak and say my name and what I did and where I was from and and you'll hear me say often that my father studied also not really anymore and he's in his mid 80s and he is the wind beneath my wings. I had him to inspire me. I knew that more fluency was possible. I knew how much confidence and positive affirmation really mattered in life so today I really wanted to talk about these three tips that I think for parents of teens young adults that really help me really keep going on the journey to get help and it was hard when I was younger because there was not a lot of help out there so positive affirmations positive talking, positive thinking, positive mindset not always accepting where you are at this point in life and understanding that where you are at this point in life my you know at the age of 1415 might not be where you are later on so I'm just to talk. The number one thing well I wanna also say that I have so many teens and young adults on Zoom. They do not need in person therapy if if their attention span isn't there, then they probably aren't candidate for in person or zoom, but you don't know that until they try so number one it's important to praise children young yet it's young adults young adults for what they do for what they are so if you hear them stuttering, even if they're in therapy and they're really trying praise what you hear them really trying to do they know they're stut. They don't need to be reminded if you have to remind someone to use strategies then they're not at the right point to use them and people can't use strategies all day. Some people are more mild and it's a lot easier on them and if they're more severe, there's so much more involved so always praise what you see what they do how you feel what they say manners number two it's it's hard to ask parents because I'm a parent. I have two older daughters and it's hard to ask kids sometimes about things that are really bothering them because they know you want to fix it. They want to give you the right answer and sometimes they get defensive so that's so we we always have to sort of make more comments. I would avoid talking about stuttering a lot not that you can't and if they come to you absolutely but just always remember if you're finding it hard hearing it they're finding it even harder because the days when I couldn't say my name and had to push words out were very painful and very anxiety provoking number three if your child teen young idol comes to you and they want help that's a sign that they are motivated understand that not everyone is me the same not everyone speaks the same not everyone takes the same amount of time for therapy, but definitely get them help because they're telling you that they're struggling and good for you for getting them to help that they need Zoom is great for them. They have a lot going on in my case I'm just going to tell you these are the states that I do zoom online New York New Jersey Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Florida. I think I forgot one and California if the timing works out it's much easier for them. They don't have to spend time in the car. It's their world. It's 45 minutes. This is this is not like zoom school during Covid. This is 45 minutes and it's really the same and it saves time and then really it's helpful and again praise your kids. Remember they're struggling if they're stuttring, they're struggling and they're speaking different than the real world is that's a fact of life and some people handle be different better than others and it's important for them to have somebody to speak to. www.allislandspeech.com

First we start working on to learn easier ways I'm breathing from our diaphragm and we also work on a lot of the emotional components of building confidence on the phone calling up a restaurant saying our names so I really and there is some home practice involved. I really believe that the people who have committed to this program it is life changing. I spoke to a parent yesterday of a ninth grader who took my program last year. He actually stayed longer because he wanted to make sure that he got the skills and she said now in ninth grade he pretty much uses his strategies in a more natural manner and he's a much more comfortable and confident speaker he can like do a little presentation in class. I mean to me public speaking is hard and I and I um I always feel bad for especially you know anyone who you know has not taken a public speaking class or it's just hard to all of a sudden get up whether you stutter or not and just speak to anybody you know and I don't know about you like I'm not great on the spot like if I and this is nothing to do with stuttering like if I go to a meeting or something and they say okay, you know, let's go around the room and talk about your feve animal or talk about where you want to go on vacation you know like these icebreakers I'm not very good at them and I start to get very nervous because I don't. It's a car for me to just think on the spot and so my heart always goes out to people who after all of a sudden zoo public speaking and you know in school accounts as an academic grade or at work you know it counts as whether you're going to move up in the company or not so it's something we work on in our other groups also, but I'm just very excited about the let's talk fluency program. It's something I developed I believe nobody knows what it's like to stun it unless you stutter yourself most of these programs are done virtually, which is so much easier for everybody so we don't have to spend time traveling and it gives us more time to do some practice at home so if you're interested, please reach out to me. My email is LoriRI at all island speech.com I really my goal is to help people and offer hope where you might have had therapy like once a week in the past for a half an hour and it wasn't really working. It just isn't enough to change motor patterns in school. Many of the students don't qualify anyway, not all speech pathologists specialize in stuttering and they' just isn't this the expertise or the specialty to work on it so I will keep talking about it. Feel free to email me most of these intensive programs are out of network because there is such a emotional component. There is a coaching component and it's just impossible for these programs to work you know in the medical model of what most insurance companies will pay in network, but you know please contact me for more information and you certainly can use a flex spending card if you need to so I hope that information helps. you can also no let's email. I was gonna say text me but sometimes things get a little bit lost in it texting you know what I'll put my number 516-776-0184 Have a wonderful day if you started there is hope there are many people who tried to knock me down and tell me I wouldn't be able to attain a higher level of fluency and they were 100% wrong and the more they told me the more I put back you can do this. You don't have to be 100% fluent. You don't even have to be you know 90 you can be what what whatever you want but you want to say what you want to say you don't want to feel like you can only say things that you have to push out of your mouth so there is hope I can't wait to tell you more and have on my guests and I can't wait to hear from you. Have a wonderful fabulous day your voice matters you matter to me.

Sometimes children are not eligible for school speech therapy. Other times no one specializes in stuttering therapy. Understanding the difference of an academic speech model vs private specialized therapy.

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Lori Melnitsky discusses the MPI 2 program. This intensive adult fluency program, developed by Dr. Roger Ingham and colleagues, aims to improve speech fluency in individuals who stutter. Lori shares her personal journey with stuttering and the benefits of the MPI 2 program, which uses an app and biofeedback to modify vocal fold vibrations.

Episode 80:

Better to do zoom therapy with a stuttering specialist : it works and here is why.

Hi today I really would like to talk about something very important and that is telehealth and stuttering therapy. I am licensed in many states and I just want to share with you some success stories over the pandemic where we had no choice but to do online and of course there are some kids who cannot do online therapy, but I'm gonna tell you the majority of them can I'm talking about your preschoolers and early school aged children from ages like 3 to 7 especially with parents involvement is so key. The idea is not for them to look at a screen and do a game with me or with anybody else. We' going to share three success stories with you so you can sort of get an idea so one is a five year old who was from actually Pennsylvania. We will call him

Michael so mom and I would talk over Zoom. We would develop a plan each week. He was stuttering. I would say pretty severely He did three games each time he was on for around 20 minutes then I would get on with mom again. I would tell her what to do and with 12 weeks he was stuttering very mildly and we went to maintenance and I gave her games and things to do at home. The next one I'm going to tell you believe it or not was 3 1/2 he was from New York City. I'm gonna call him Aaron Aaron did have a very good attention span and he actually was on Zoom longer than I wanted him on so I I had a plan extra time with mom and again within he was a 14 week. He's not stuttering anymore and this is almost four years later. The third one actually was a very bright five-year-old young little girl from Manhattan she actually did not love being on Zoom. She did very well in school. She had no problems in school. She was stuttering moderately so her and a mom and I did more of a parent coaching model. It is four years later. She's not studying anymore. The reality is whether you're in person or on Zoom if you don't have a stuttering specialist it won't help you unless you just have a child who's going to developmentally stuff stuttering on their own. I think sometimes we have to have a little bit more of an oven open mind about Zoom obviously if you live 510 minutes from me and you wanna come in and I happen to be in the office you can but this allows consistency options, parent involvement, especially for preschoolers in early school age children who stutter while speech pathologists are not alike school speech pathologists many times go through school never meeting one person who stutters and they don't know how to help so it's all speech mythologists are not alike, all children are not alike if you can really as a parent, you know see if your child will do well with that. You will have options in like other states even if if you're in a where you can find a specialist who can really help you so I just encourage you like before because a lot of people are like automatically saying no no no no no and yet I'm thinking to myself there were like three or four years where I worked with hundreds who st studdered, who have language issues even, who had articulation issues, believe it or not who are doing so well now and I believe the reason why is because there was a lot of involvement because there was a lot of consistency you don't cancel as much when you're online. You don't have to worry about weather. It's honestly a more relaxed environment. I think if we can sort of you know sort of get into the way things are nowadays we will be much happier and it'll allow us more freedom because I am so thrilled and glad that I have had the opportunity because I'm licensed in many states, even though I'm in New York. I've had a huge New Jersey Connecticut, Pennsylvania,CA

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