Page 57 - ABILITY Magazine -Cedric Yarbrough Issue

to control my stuttering were useless.
funded the program. Fifteen other students attended. Half the students stuttered, the remaining students had other speech problems. It was a demanding program specifically designed to help students improve oral com- munications. The officials running the program did not expect miracles. The people spearheading the program reminded us daily that our commitment to the program was 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for 12 weeks.
One of the techniques was to move my arms forward and backwards while I spoke. Another was to speak to the rhythm of my toes. A third technique was to speak to the rhythm of my fingers. A fourth was to sing whatever I was saying. These techniques were supposed to make it easier to speak and eventually I would not stutter.
The program consisted of individual and group therapy sessions, role-playing, oral reporting, public speaking, sports, socializing and writing. From Monday through Friday all 16 students met from 8 a.m.- 9 a.m. The stu- dents who stuttered then went into one room, and stu- dents with other speech challenges went into another room. Two hours later we met again for an hour. We lunched from noon to 12:45 p.m. We had physical activity from 12:45 p.m.- 2 p.m. Then it was back to school until 5 p.m. Between 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. stu- dents had individual therapy. Between 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. everyone met in one room for group therapy.
One night my father saw me practicing the techniques. When I finished, he asked me, “John! Are you learning anything that can help you get rid of your stuttering?”
“No.”
Dad withdrew me from Jordan’s class.
It was six years before I took speech therapy again. I went to Catholic schools, and they did not provide any speech therapy, so I became accustomed to stuttering. By the end of my sophomore year of high school, my stuttering dominated me. I stuttered on most words.
There was homework. We had a voluminous reading and writing program. All my readings dealt with stutter- ing. I read short stories, books, speeches, dissertations and other materials written by people who stuttered. The goal behind the readings was to expand our knowledge of our speech problem.
Sometimes my blocks lasted seconds and sometimes half a minute to a minute. My secondary symptoms multiplied. I had at least 70 secondary symptoms, a sec- ondary symptom is a body movement occurring during a block that aids the block. Secondary symptoms are not limited to one body movement. A stutterer can exhibit multiple secondary symptoms simultaneously.
We kept a diary on what we learned about our speech challenges. At the end of the week, we turned the typed diary over to a therapist, and the following Monday the diaries were returned ungraded.
I knew I wanted to be a writer since the sixth grade. To be successful I knew I needed to control my stuttering. The key to achieving my goal came from an unexpected source. It was the first day of my junior year at St. Mary’s High School. My French teacher Sister Hillary heard me stutter. She was so shocked that she never, I mean never, called on me the rest of the year and only twice the following year. She gave me the name and tele- phone number of speech therapist John Seamon. John and I clicked instantly. He set up a program to help me control my stuttering. Near the end of my junior year, he told me he had larger plans for me and my stuttering.
My goals consisted of reducing the severity of my blocks, eliminating secondary symptoms, overcoming my fear of speaking in front of others, eliminating my feared words phobia and avoiding starting my conver- sation then stopping and starting. It wasn’t easy to meet these goals. In 12 weeks, I worked harder than I did during three years of high school.
In April 1962, Seamon arranged for me to go to Bloomsburg State Teacher’s College, Bloomsburg, PA for the entire summer. The college had a dynamic 12- week speech therapy program for people with severe speech impediments. In June 1962, two days before the program started, I left Wilkes-Barre for Bloomsburg by bus, a 44 mile trip. I was by myself. I wanted it that way. I was nervous. Scared. Worried. Tired. Lonely. I did not have a lot of confidence in myself. Physically I was a mess. During my sophomore and junior years I worked at a grocery store 35 hours a week and went to school full time. After two years of working that crazy schedule, I was exhausted mentally and physically. I was determined to do whatever was needed to succeed.
The Bloomsburg program required a discipline and a strong commitment I had never experienced. By the end of the summer, my teachers Dr. Maietta (who ran the program), Sam Schilling (Dr. Maietta and Schilling stut- tered), Sandra Williams (no relation to me), Dick Meese, Carl West and Dr. Bellini praised my attitude and progress. Dr. Bellini was a psychiatrist, and he worked with me in a group and in one-on-one situations.
The Pennsylvania Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation
We were required to read six books on stuttering and report on them orally before students at the college majoring in special education. Initially, I balked at speaking to students I did not know. I tried to get out of the assignment, but I could not. When we finished our reports, we answered questions from the students. After each report the students and the people running the program evaluated me. Everyone told me I was improving with each report.
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