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Movie will raise awareness of speech therapy rights

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Movie will raise awareness of speech therapy rights

January 2, 2011

AS THE parent of a child who stutters, I appreciated your article “What do they

all have in common? A stutter. And now a new movie,’’ (g, Dec. 28) as it

skillfully detailed the difficulties faced by children and adults with this

speech problem. I agree with the article in that the movie “The King’s Speech’’

is doing amazing things in terms of educating the public, as well as putting a

human face on the problem.

I have long been aware of the great work done by the ph Germono Fluency

Clinic at Boston University. The article did not mention, however, that private

speech therapy is out of reach to many Americans. Even people with

employer-based health coverage find that their plans do not provide adequate

access to speech therapy, regardless of what the speech problem may be.

Since experts on stuttering agree that starting early is the key to working with

children, I was surprised that your article did not mention that every child in

the United States with a speech problem has the right to free speech therapy, as

it has been part of federal law for almost 40 years. The Stuttering Foundation’s

website (www.stutteringhelp.org) has a brochure entitled “Special Education Law

and Children Who Stutter’’ that explains the free speech therapy benefit, which

can begin in preschool and continue throughout high school. The brochure makes

it clear that this is for all speech problems that children may face, and is not

exclusive to stuttering.

Over the past two years, I have read countless articles in the Globe about our

national health care policy; it is a shame that this aspect of our national

health care policy went unnoticed in the debate over national health care. It is

my hope that the heightened interest in stuttering as a result of “The King’s

Speech’’ will bring attention to the policy of free speech therapy so that more

kids in need may be helped, especially those whose parents cannot afford private

speech therapy.

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