Episode 69 Stuttering Demystified And Beyond How To Survive College Orientation If You Stutter Lori Melnitsky Lori Melnitsky is a specialist in stuttering, speech pathologist and someone who stuttered severely. In this episode, Lori shares her experience as a former college student who stutters and how she survived it. According to Lori, she found it very uncomfortable to be in a group setting. For instance, just after she had graduated from high school and over the summer, she had her freshman orientation at Hofstra University and they had to go to school for a one-night sleepover. According to Lori, everyone had a roommate except for herself as she ended up alone in her room and the electricity wasn’t working that night. To her, it was a spooky experience which left her kind of scared. Because of her stuttering, she felt very uncomfortable and worn out since she couldn’t say her name because the idea and the perception of stuttering while having other people staring at her was just so overwhelming. She was afraid of meeting people because she couldn’t express herself. According to Lori, she hadn't had intensive speech therapy before or dealt with the emotional side of stuttering. She also hadn't had any coaching at that time. That became a daunting experience for her as she wasn’t comfortable speaking and meeting new people. Yet, she made it through and in all her undergraduate years of college, she only had one or two oral presentations which she still found to be quite hard to do. However, she learned a lot from her college stuttering experience. First, as a stuttering student, you might want to notify your professor about your stuttering as this will probably create more comfortable environment for you in your presentations. It can also help you eliminate the worries of being found out as someone who stutters. Second, you might want to have some form of speech therapy. For example, you can role play in front of a mirror, record it so you can use it to hear your voice or take some breaths before you speak when you wake up in the morning. Recording and listening to yourself as you speak will help you roll out the fear of being left out or being misunderstood. You also have to learn to deal with emotions that come with stuttering especially if you are someone who feels like you are not normal but still feels like you have to say what you want to say because according to Lori, it's so important that we say what we want to say since sometimes it can be very humiliating to try and change words. Therefore, taking a few breaths, talking to your professor so that he is aware of your stuttering just before you do your presentation and talking in front of a mirror are some speech tips that will help you do your speech without stuttering. To learn more, you can reach out to Lori through her website at www.allislandspeech.com where she offers specialized programs specially geared for college students that will help you become a more fluent and confident speaker. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lori-melnitsky/message