Ezra sits down with Karli Marx (aka E) for a candid conversation about their journey growing up with a stutter and discovering their queerness, and navigating both experiences feeling unseen even eventually within LGBTQ or stuttering communities. They dive into the formation of Karli, Balitmore's stuttering drag performer, hosting their own shows, and how these experiences bleed into building confidence in the rest of their life. Really beautiful story.

Guest Bio

Karli Marx (they/them) is Baltimore’s kooky drag thing who stutters. As the reigning Mx. Mixers 2024, Karli has made a mark on the city's drag scene with a style that's equal parts eerie and alluring. They love to mix dark, spooky elements with sultry, seductive energy, creating unforgettable looks and performances that are as unique as they are. Whether serving an otherworldly vibe or crafting eye-popping, DIY looks, Karli Marx is all about embracing individuality, having fun, and making sure every performance leaves a lasting impression.

Karli's Instagram is @bemorelikekarli

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Intro music is an edited excerpt of: "The Crawl of Life" jaspertine ccmixter.org, 4.0 CC BY license

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Post-production editing by DJ Liam, instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@liam.m4a⁠⁠⁠⁠

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What are the challenges and importance of implementing neurodiversity affirming therapy in school-based settings? Join host Ezra and guest Matt Maxion, a speech therapist who stutters, as they discuss the shift from fluency-focused goals to empowering individuals who stutter to communicate confidently. The two address misconceptions, share personal experiences, and advocate for a more inclusive therapy approach… and Matt shares his answer to “What place do the infamous fluency shaping and stuttering modification ‘techniques’ have in affirming speech therapy” 

Guest Bio

Matt Maxion is a CCC-SLP and stutterer who aims to shift our perspective for stuttering therapy closer to neurodiversity affirming therapy, prioritizing a build in communication confidence and participation in daily activities. Matt’s commitment lies in fostering positive, practical change rather than adhering to conventional metrics of fluency.

Matt and Ezra will both be speaking at the National Stuttering Association’s annual conference this July: https://westutter.org/conference/speakers/ 

FOOTNOTES

To learn more about how the neurodivergent-affirming speech therapy applies to stuttering:

For related episodes of the pod, check out these 2023 episodes:

Shaping Speech Therapy with Steff Lebsack, CCC-SLP: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4g7ZfdI5udJHTHG13Itsql?si=33c02a9ed8574603

Widening the Stuttering Therapy Lens with Nina Reeves, CCC-SLP, BCS-FD: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2nN8YpO4XBclHlHXDCHwxF?si=84695339e9fa4daa 

For additional speech therapy resources on how to apply these, check out Martha Speech on Teachers Pay Teachers, and Stuttering Therapy Resources

Martha Speech: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Martha-Speech

STR: https://stutteringtherapyresources.com/pages/free-resources 

Nicole's Stutter Affirming Binder: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Miss-Nicole-Stuttering-Support

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Intro music is an edited excerpt of: "The Crawl of Life" jaspertine ccmixter.org, 4.0 CC BY license

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Post-production editing by DJ Liam, instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠@liam.m4a⁠⁠⁠

Follow Stutterology on ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ or find more information at ⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/stutterology⁠⁠

What happens when you go from never talking about your stutter to being one of the leading voices educating people on acceptance in the span of just a few short years? Is it possible to lose a part of your voice in the process of finding your voice?

Ezra sits down with James Hayden, author of Dear World, I Stutter, and huge Survivor fan. After meeting other people who stutter for the first time in October 2015, he had published his book in December 2017. The book was more popular than James predicted, and before long, "James: The Brand" worked itself into his persona. James discusses that process, and how the disconnect he felt from "The Brand" led to burnout, and now a new season for his life.

You can find his book and more information at https://linktr.ee/jhayden93

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Intro music is an edited excerpt of:

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Production editing by DJ Liam, instagram ⁠⁠⁠@liam.m4a⁠⁠

Follow Stutterology on ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ or find more information at ⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/stutterology⁠

The definition of stuttering has changed constantly over the years - and the connotations of the definition feel different between people who stutter and those who don't. So what does it actually mean to stutter? Is graduate school always giving up and coming speech therapists an accurate depiction?

Host Ezra Horak, stutterer, and guest Nicole Kulmaczewski, CCC-SLP, push back against traditional medical definitions (like the one found on mayoclinic), and then end up pushing back against one another (but it's OK, they forgive each other). Aiming to approach the implications various definitions may have, the two advocate for inclusivity and a deeper comprehension of the stuttering experience.

GUEST

Nicole Kulmaczewski, CCC-SLP is the Deputy Director of MySpeech (https://myspeechhub.org) and a speech therapist in New York. Nicole is passionate about advocacy and spreading stuttering awareness through social media posts, continuing education, and day to day life. Her email is [email protected]

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FOOTNOTES/REFERENCES:

Further Reading:

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Ezra interviews Lara Gabrielle about Marion Davies, an actress who was one of the few to make the transition from silent films to "talkies"... oh, and she stuttered.

Marion Davies (1897-1961), an American actress, screenwriter, producer, and philanthropist was a wonder that many people were captured by. This is impressive by any feat, but even moreso as a woman born in the 1890s. So why don't we know more about her? And what impact did stuttering have on Davies's life?

Lara Gabrielle knew that the life of Marion Davies was a story someone needed to tell. She was captured by Davies at a young age, and her research on Davies took her down many paths - one of those being the world of stuttering. Although Davies spoke privately about her stutter, more pieces fell into place the more Gabrielle connected with the stuttering community.

The impact of stuttering during this time often isn't known, and this is a beautiful window into what it meant not just to be a woman who stuttered at a time when women had less agency over their lives, but one of laughter, love, and heartbreak.

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Guest: Lara Gabrielle is a biographer and researcher, whose work on Marion Davies has been featured in Alta, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Missouri Review, The Wall Street Journal, and on PBS’s American Experience. Gabrielle has spoken at film festivals and retrospectives worldwide, and is acknowledged as the leading authority on Davies’s life and legacy, serving as a consultant on Marion Davies for books, dissertations, and film projects. Gabrielle’s biography, Captain of Her Soul: The Life of Marion Davies, has been included on many top book lists for 2022, and was shortlisted for the 2023 Northern California Book Award.

Learn more at https://mariondaviesbook.com/

Follow Lara on Instagram and Twitter at @backlotsfilm

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mariondaviesbook/

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Intro music is an edited excerpt of:

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Post-production edits by DJ Liiam, instagram @liam.m4a

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Follow Stutterology on Instagram or find more information at https://linktr.ee/stutterology

The journalist response to former President Donald Trump mocking the disability of President Joe Biden is disheartening. This isn't just an exhaustion of Trump - this is a reflection of a society that doesn't think mocking a stutter is "that bad".

The only outcry has come from people who stutter. The only news articles out as of this moment are about Biden "didn't stutter" on the word Trump mocked him for - as if that's the point?! Listen to stuttering voices and do better when you cover the way a former president mocks my disability.

You can contact us at info [at] stutterology.com or on instagram @stutterology.

FOOTNOTES:

1. Video shared by TikTok star Marc Winski - https://www.tiktok.com/@marcwinski/video/7321112541873196334

News articles as of this podcast:

A. The New York Times

"He also mocked Mr. Biden’s delivery, suggesting he was stuttering throughout his speech when he was not. Mr. Biden is the first modern president to have a stutter, which he has dealt with since childhood."

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/01/05/us/presidential-primary-iowa-caucus

B. Washington Post

"The remark was not true; Biden said the word “democracy” 29 times in his speech, never stuttering over it."

⁠⁠https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/06/trump-biden-stutter/⁠⁠

C. MSNBC

"In his Iowa speech Friday, Trump also mocked President Joe Biden for the speech he delivered earlier in the day portraying Trump as a threat to democracy.

“Did you see him? He was stuttering through the whole thing,” Trump said. Then he mimicked a person with a stutter."

https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-iowa-school-shooting-get-over-it-rcna132642

D. Newsweek (1 sentence in the article at the end, an afterthought)

"He branded Biden's campaign launch speech as fear-mongering and mocked Biden's stuttering."

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-speech-attacking-donald-trump-1858392

E. The Hill

"...Trump said, mocking Biden’s delivery of his speech. Biden has spoken publicly about how he overcame a stutter as a child."

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4392263-trump-accuses-biden-fearmongering-jan-6-speech/

F. The Daily Mail

PS: I know The Daily Mail is awful. I address that in the episode. I still just... cannot get over the language used in it.

"Former President Donald Trump slapped back at President Joe Biden during a rally in Iowa late Friday afternoon mocking the president for 'stuttering' through a speech in which he warned Americans about the dangers of a second Trump term."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12932179/Trump-says-Biden-stuttered-January-6-speech.html

In this two-part special of "Stutterology," we take a deep dive into the infamous unpublished 1939 experiment at Univesity of Iowa by Wendell Johnson and his graduate student, Mary Tudor, which has been dubbed the "Monster Study."

Join our host Ezra, a person who stutters, and two key guests, including a Speech Language Pathologist as we unravel never-before-discussed insights into the backstory of Wendell Johnson, how it influenced this study, and how it relates to modern-day speech therapy for stutterers.

There is a lot to unpack and explore in this episode, including:

Part 2 comes out in 1 week (Nov 7th), where we discuss the results of the study, and how we see this in modern day speech therapy for children who stutter (YIKES).

Guests:

Nicole Kulmaczewski - CCC-SLP and Deputy Director of MySpeechApp

Jenny McGuire - person who stutters and Executive Director,

FOOTNOTES:

1. Tudor, M. (1939). An experimental study of the effect of evaluative labeling of speech fluency (Master of Arts (MA), University of Iowa; W. Johnson & C. E. Obermann, Eds.). University of Iowa. Retrieved from https://iro.uiowa.edu/esploro/outputs/graduate/An-experimental-study-of-the-effect/9983777385602771/filesAndLinks?index=0

2. Williams, Dave. 1999. “Wendell Johnson and Charles van Riper.” Web.mnsu.edu. Minnesota State University. 1999. https://web.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster/pioneers/davewilliams.html

3. Sies, L. F. (1968). Wendell Johnson — An Appreciation. ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 25(3), 263–269. Jstor. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/42576235

4. Interview: Jim Dyer discusses a 1930s study on stuttering. (2001, June 11). All Things Considered. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A166043255/BIC?u=multnomah_main&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=cc8e3697

5. Wendell Andrew Leroy Johnson. (1981). In Dictionary of American Biography. Charles Scribner's Sons. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/BT2310010232/BIC?u=multnomah_main&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=63540cf2

6. Qatar, S, (Host). (2022, Oct 8). Claypole, J (Guest). Unethical experiments: the Monster Study. In All In The Mind. Leake, J (Producer). https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/allinthemind/all-in-the-mind-unethical-experiments-monster-study/14073414

7. Thompson, S (Host). (2022, Sep 15). 129.2 - The Monster Study. In American English Podcast. https://americanenglishpodcast.com/129-2-the-monster-study/

Thanks for listening! To support Stutterology, sign up on Patreon.

Be sure to follow us on Instagram at @Stutterology

Guest Nina Reeves shares her insights and experiences working with children who stutter and offers valuable advice for parents seeking to support their child's communication journey. Her and our host discuss the importance of creating a safe and accepting environment, understanding the child's perspective, and the need to address thoughts and feelings about stuttering. Together, they explore the concept of "easier communication" and emphasize the value of open discussions surrounding stuttering.

Steff Lebsack (she/her), CCC-SLP based in Colorado and licensed in several states, dives into the challenges that can pop up in traditional speech therapy, especially in school settings. 

The conversation is diverse - Ezra and Steff discuss challenging traditional speech therapy approaches, the use of speaking strategies when working with kids who stutter, the need for mentorship and support for speech-language pathologists, the wonders of the stuttering community, and Steff’s use of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) in the speech therapy setting. 

Steff also shares lovely stories of working with children who stutter, highlighting the importance of respecting their agency and involving them in therapy decisions.

About the GuestSteff Lebsack is a speech pathologist based in Colorado. She has her own private practice and is a professor. Steff has an extensive background in medical speech pathology, having worked in hospitals for over 12 years. She has a particular passion for treating individuals with stuttering and communication differences in acute care and ICU settings. This has led her to develop a deep interest in bioethics and medical autonomy. Steff aspires to pursue a doctorate in public health and bioethics after completing her PhD program. Outside of work, Steff coaches the girls' cross country team with her high school teacher and coach husband. They have two young children and enjoy the busy and active lifestyle that comes with their family dynamic. You can learn more about her services at https://www.lebsackspeechtherapy.com/ 

Other resources mentioned in this episode: MySpeech - https://myspeechhub.org/Franky Banky - https://www.frankybanky.com/

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Please note that this episode is intended as educational content and not as a substitute for professional advice. If you have concerns about your individual child’s unique needs and speech, it is recommended to seek guidance from a licensed speech-language pathologist.