Are you a former member of Speechmasters of Ottawa the self-help group for people who stutter that was very active in the 1980s and the early 1990s? This was a very large group that met in the Ottawa Rehabïlatation Centre. Marie Poulos was the speech therapist at the Stuttering Treatment Clinic at that time.
I, along with several other members of the current Ottawa Association of People Who Stutter (OAPWS) was also a member of the Speechmasters group and (more…)
Once again the Ottawa Association of People Who Stutter – OAPWS is participating in the Ottawa Race Weekend as members of the Stuttering Treatment Clinic Team. This event is one of Canada’s most prestigious race events of the year and takes place on May 26th & 27th. The Team is under the umbrella of the Ottawa Hospital Foundation’s (OHF) “Run For A Reason” campaign.
Our team is raising funds to enable teens and adults attend speech therapy programs at the clinic. This clinic is located at the Rehab Centre of the Ottawa General Hospital and is only one of three such facilities in Canada to offer semi-intensive and intensive therapy programs for individuals who stutter. The money we raise will go to….. (more…)
The 10th Canadian Stuttering Association Conference will take place in Vancouver, B.C. on August 19th and 20th.
2011 will be a special year for the Canadian Stuttering Association as the year will mark the organization’s 20th Anniversary!
Like past conferences, the goals of the event are two-fold: first of all, to be a learning experience featuring workshops and seminars about stuttering. Secondly, the CSA conference offers a rare chance for people who stutter across Canada and beyond, of all ages and backgrounds, to meet and socialize. (more…)
All too often we give thanks to our speech path, our fellow PWS (people who stutter), and our close friends for their patience and support; this includes before, during and after therapy.
Unfortunately, we usually forget to include those closest to us, our partners, other members of our immediate and extended families, and even our pets.
Our partners are there 24/7, giving us encouragement and reminders, sometimes to the point of exhaustion and frustration, that we aren’t using our skills. We’re ready to thank everyone else, but our families are often over-looked. They have been there sharing our pain before therapy, having the patience trying to learn what we are learning through therapy, and trying to get us to do what we should be doing after therapy. (more…)
In May the Halifax Support Group for People Who Stutter celebrated their seventh anniversary. Participants enjoyed celebratory snacks and drinks as well as a presentation from Dr. Michael Kiefte, a Dalhousie researcher who is interested in methods to reduce the frequency of stuttering. Lively discussion followed, along with some choral reading to help members with their flu
The Halifax Support Group For People Who Stutter is run by Alison Thompson, who can be contacted through e-mail at alison.thompson@dal.ca
Recently OAPWS has been in contact with Alison and shared experiences on sustaining a support group. The Halifax group is very lucky in that they obtain free meeting space at Dalhousie University. Also interesting to learn is that student pathologists at the Dalhousie School for Communication Disorders attend many of the group’s meetings – it is a requirement of their program. Alison noted that this arrangement has been very beneficial both for the students and the members of the support group. (more…)
Despite the threat of rain throughout the day and the odd drizzle, the Ottawa Association of People Who Stutter held its first annual garage sale on Saturday June 25 2011. With a convenient location in the west end of Ottawa on a very busy street the sale attracted many customers who went away with tremendous deals.
By the end of the day we had raised over $400. This money will be used to cover OAPWS expenses such as rental fees for our bi-monthly meeting space as well as printing fees for our brochures and other publicity material.
The sale not only raised money but gave us another opportunity to publicize our group and create further awareness about stuttering. (more…)