In fifth grade, Alan Mendoza’s teacher quietly pulled him aside right before recess and told him there was a woman in the library who wanted to talk to him. He walked in, sat down, and she showed him pictures and a passage to read aloud. Alan figured out what was happening fast. He had spent years coming up with his own tricks to get through moments like this, and he used every one of them. When he was done, the woman sent him back to recess and he never saw her again. It was not until years later, after he became a speech pathologist himself, that he realized she had probably been screening him for a fluency disorder all along.

In this episode, Alan, a speech-language pathologist and person who stutters from Long Beach, California, shares what it was like growing up with a stutter that nobody around him really understood. He talks about the strategies he invented on his own as a kid, how a linguistics professor at UCLA pointed him toward speech pathology as a career, and how the pandemic became the moment he finally started accepting his stutter. He also shares what led him to start a stuttering advocacy club at Cal State Los Angeles, what it feels like to work with kids who stutter now that he is a school-based speech pathologist, and why he thinks the most important thing he can teach those kids is how to relax.

In this episode

• Boston University Center for Stuttering Therapy Adult Stuttering Support Group
• Support Proud Stutter

----

Big thanks to Proud Stutter's recurring supporters: Jennifer Bolen, Jerry Slaff, Josh Compton, Pablo Meza, Alexandra Mosby, Ingo Helbig, Jonathan Reiss, Jason Smith, Paige McGill, Wayne Engebretson, Swathy Manavalan, and Martha Horrocks.

If you can become a monthly donor at $10 or more, we’ll give you access to ad-free episodes and bonus Proud Stutter+ content as a token of our thanks! Make your tax deductible gift here.

Proud Stutter is proudly fiscally sponsored by Independent Arts & Media.

Want to lean more about what Proud Stutter has to offer? Sign up here to stay in the loop and take advantage of our upcoming events, actions, and educational materials.

When Lisbeth Peguero was a little girl, her mom took her to speech therapy once. Inside the office, she did not stutter at all. The therapist told her mom she was fine and did not need help. Walking out, Lisbeth felt relieved. Not because she was actually fine, but because she did not want to be the girl who went to speech therapy. She did not want to disappoint her mom. That moment shaped how she felt about her stutter for years.

In this episode, Lisbeth, a model, paralegal, and stuttering advocate from Austin, Texas, talks about growing up with a stutter she tried to hide. She shares what it is like to walk into a casting room and have to say your name out loud when you stutter, and the night she got on stage at a mall in Houston, microphone in hand, to audition for Victoria's Secret in front of Ashley Graham. She also talks about starting a podcast, getting her Pilates certification, and the speech therapy that finally helped her stop trying to get rid of her stutter and start learning to accept it.

In this episode

• Lisbeth's audition
• Lisbeth's podcast
• Follow Lisbeth on IG & TikTok
• Support Proud Stutter

----

Big thanks to Proud Stutter's recurring supporters: Jennifer Bolen, Jerry Slaff, Josh Compton, Pablo Meza, Alexandra Mosby, Ingo Helbig, Jonathan Reiss, Jason Smith, Paige McGill, Wayne Engebretson, Swathy Manavalan, and Martha Horrocks.

If you can become a monthly donor at $10 or more, we’ll give you access to ad-free episodes and bonus Proud Stutter+ content as a token of our thanks! Make your tax deductible gift here.

Proud Stutter is proudly fiscally sponsored by Independent Arts & Media.

Want to lean more about what Proud Stutter has to offer? Sign up here to stay in the loop and take advantage of our upcoming events, actions, and educational materials.

Isaiah was in third grade when his teacher called on someone else while he was still in the middle of answering a question. He had the answer. He just stuttered getting it out. That was the moment he started wondering if his stutter made him less capable than everyone else.

In this episode, Isaiah Solomon, a 21-year-old political science student at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, from Boston, Massachusetts, talks about what it has been like growing up with a stutter. He shares the eighth grade presentation that went terribly wrong, how acting in school plays was the one place he felt totally fluent, and what it was like starting college and meeting hundreds of new people on orientation day. He also talks about stuttering in French class, the internship he did with his state senator, and what he is thinking about as he heads into his senior year with a career in politics on his mind.

----

Big thanks to Proud Stutter's recurring supporters: Jennifer Bolen, Jerry Slaff, Josh Compton, Pablo Meza, Alexandra Mosby, Ingo Helbig, Jonathan Reiss, Jason Smith, Paige McGill, Wayne Engebretson, Swathy Manavalan, and Martha Horrocks.

If you can become a monthly donor at $10 or more, we’ll give you access to ad-free episodes and bonus Proud Stutter+ content as a token of our thanks! Make your tax deductible gift here.

Proud Stutter is proudly fiscally sponsored by Independent Arts & Media.

Want to lean more about what Proud Stutter has to offer? Sign up here to stay in the loop and take advantage of our upcoming events, actions, and educational materials.