Essay about being bullied secures help for stuttering 13-year-old

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Essay about being bullied secures help for stuttering 13-year-old

He wins a scholarship for a speech-aid device.

Posted: July 29, 2010

By Dan Scanlan

Reid is a 13-year-old whose 2-year-old stepbrother, Aidyn, is dealing

with cancer.

If that's not enough, stutters, making him the target of school

bullying, he admits.

But thanks to eloquent words he wrote about his life with stuttering, his spoken

words now flow more easily. 's essay won a SpeechEasy

Scholarship. And a tiny hearing aid-like device was presented to him Wednesday

at Wolfson Children's Rehabilitation Services in ville.

He called that " pretty sweet. "

" I actually feel pretty excited and it just feels awesome, " said after a

few minutes of steady speech with the device.

" His stuttering had gotten so bad everybody was getting a bit aggravated, " said

his mother, Dora Reid. " It is so different to actually have a conversation with

him. ... I can't ask for a better blessing, with the exception of healing Aidyn.

This is a blessing beyond words. "

is a tall teen with two older sisters and his stepbrother who live in

Waverly, Ga., with Dora and Mark Reid. His stuttering lengthens and sometimes

stalls words. Home-schooled for three years due to bullying and Aidyn's medical

issues, he had to stop speech therapy when his stepbrother was diagnosed with

germ cell cancer and underwent nine chemotherapies, 25 radiation treatments and

11 surgeries.

He admitted that school with a stutter was very tough, so he couldn't wait for

the device so he could go back to class as an eighth-grader.

" Every other week, this one kid would try to pick fights, but that's just how he

is, " said. " I want to just talk a little bit smoother and just hope

people would stop making fun. "

The road to SpeechEasy started when the Wolfson staff noticed 's

stuttering when he was there visiting Aidyn and arranged an evaluation. He was

urged to write an essay about how stuttering affected his life, which won the

scholarship.

Started by Ocoee residents Andy and Martha -, the

scholarship provides free SpeechEasy devices and therapy to children who

stutter. It is named in memory of their 10-year-old son , who received the

device nine months before his death in early 2004.

Looking like a hearing aid, the $4,700 SpeechEasy mimics what is called the

choral speech effect. That's when stutterers improve when they talk, sing or

read with other people, said Judy Hammer-Knisely, the speech pathologist who

evaluated him.

" The stutterer thinks someone else is speaking with them, " she said.

Hammer-Knisely placed the device in his left ear Wednesday and asked his mother

to help with simple exercises.

" How do you think this is going to help you with your brother? " Dora Reid asked.

" It will help a lot because I wouldn't want him to try and talk like I do, " he

answered.

- said she had happy memories as she held her late son's photograph

through 's first session.

" I see the same progress and the same improvement I saw in my son, " she said

with tears in her eyes. " A child should have an opportunity, besides speech

therapy, to have an improvement in their stuttering, anything that will give

them the tools to not withdraw. "

This is the fourth year a child served by Wolfson rehab has received the Florida

scholarship.

EXCERPT From 'How I Feel Stuttering Has Affected My Life'

" Stuttering has affected my life because everywhere I go, people tend to make

fun of me. This is very stressful. In fourth grade, when the teacher would call

on me, I would answer and the whole class would laugh. At recess, the boys would

circle around me and punch me and push me while saying 'Ha ha, you stutter and

you're stupid,' which made my stuttering worse. "

" Sometimes when I get made fun of, I use that to get stronger and learn to

ignore, but it is very hard to. ... I have ADHD, and that definitely does not

help at all. The worst part about my stuttering is that I have an adopted

brother that just turned 2 and has cancer. They didn't find the cancer until he

was 14 months old but he looks up to me. "

" When I tried the Speecheasy, I was amazed and felt like a normal person for

once. I almost cried and my mom had tears in her eyes. I couldn't believe one

thing could help so much. This would mean so much to me to have a normal life

for once in my life and be able to be back in school, maybe even play baseball. "