March Meeting Agenda

The NC Triad chapter of the National Stuttering Association will meet next Tuesday March 9th from 7-9pm in the Benbow Room on the ground floor of the Elliot Center at UNCG. We'll be discussing the upcoming national conference in Cleveland, Ohio, the NIH announcement about their genetics study, and neurosemantics as applied to stuttering. For the last item, you can go to http://www.neurosemantics.com/Stuttering/ to read more.

Also, we will be meeting socially from 2-4pm on Sunday March 28th at Panera off of Wendover in Greensboro. We hope to see you at one or both!

CNN clip with update from NIH about genes and stuttering

Here is a clip from CNN presenting new findings from the National Institutes of Health's research about the role genetics plays in stuttering. Here is a link to an article that is posted with the clip. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/10/stuttering.genes.cell/

December Meeting Recap

The NC Triad chapter of the National Stuttering Association met Tuesday December 8th from 7-9pm in the Benbow Room in the Elliott Center on the campus of UNCG. There were 5 people in attendance (4 people who stutter and 1 chapter leader/SLP). The meeting started with a round robin reading of the welcome words. Then, each person shared their favorite holiday memory or holiday tradition. The chapter leader relayed a discussion that had been held on the chapter leader's list-serve about if the concept of being called a support group or self-help group deterred people from attending for the first time. The consensus of the group was that self-help denotes the idea of practicing our speech and support group denotes discussing how stuttering is affecting our lives. Many in the group liked the idea of devoting some of our meeting's time to practicing speaking.

This started a great discussion about the purpose and future plans of our own chapter. One point that was brought up is that our chapter's website and entry on the NSA's local chapter list makes it seem at first that the chapter is only for students of UNCG because we meet on the campus. Another attendee reported that they felt more comfortable and prepared about what to expect from reading the meeting recaps on our website (nsagso.blogspot.com). The discussion naturally turned to what lies ahead for the chapter next year. At the next meeting, flyers will be handed out for people to post around town. We'll try to host a social event at a restaurant or coffee place on a non-meeting day to hopefully meet new people. We'll also start putting the meetings back up on local community calendars. The rest of the meeting was about having some fun, so we played the party game Apples to Apples. The closing words were read to end the meeting. Our next meeting will be Tuesday January 12th from 7-9pm in the Benbow Room on the ground/bottom floor of the Elliott Center on the campus of UNCG. I hope that everyone has a happy and safe holiday and enjoys our winter weather!

10/13 Meeting Agenda

The NC Triad chapter of the National Stuttering Association will meet next Tuesday 10/13 from 7-9pm in the Benbow room on the ground floor of Elliott University Center on the campus of UNCG. We will be discussing the online International Stuttering Awareness Day conference. If you'd like to look at the site ahead of time, it can be found at http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/isad12/isadcon12.html. The theme this year is "Stuttering: More than a Tangled Tongue." Please let me know if you have any questions about the meeting or the chapter. Hope to see you there!

ABC News clip Medical Mystery: Stuttering

I found this clip of an ABC News piece about stuttering.

Medical Mystery: Stuttering

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July Meeting Recap

The NC Triad chapter of the National Stuttering Association met on Tuesday July 14th from 7-8:30pm in the Benbow Room on the ground floor of Elliott University Center on the campus of UNCG. The meeting was attended by 3 people (2 PWS and 1 SLP), and there was one first time meeting attendee. Drew opened the meeting by reading the welcoming words. Emily gave a brief history of the NSA and the purpose of the Triad chapter. We did introductions of ourselves for the benefit of the first timer. This lead into discussions about previous speech therapy experiences, resources for stutterers who attend UNCG, and support systems for PWS. After a short break, we listened to a portion of a Stutter Talk podcast where Drew had called in to the show to ask about their opinion of the word "fluency" being oppressive. After listening to the podcast's hosts respond to Drew's question, we gave our own opinions of the terms "stuttering" vs. "fluency." We all agreed on the hosts' point that stuttering/fluency therapy should include emotional aspects of stuttering too. We also discussed if "fluency" was more of a clinical term while "stuttering" is used/recognized more often in conversational contexts outside of the therapy environment. Because Jason had driven from an hour and a half away to attend the meeting, we agreed to end earlier than usual. Jason read the closing words to end the meeting. The next meeting will be on Tuesday August 11th from 7-9pm in the Benbow Room on the campus of UNCG in EUC.

Pagoclone Research Trial

Recently, I received an email with information that a local pharmaceutical research center is part of the trial to test Pagoclone, a medication that is being tested for stuttering. Please see the attached file for more information if you are interested in being a part of the research trial for Pagoclone.