The King's Speech!

Hooray for Hollywood!! Honoring The King's Speech for best picture, best director, best actor, and best writer of a screen play is a huge boost to stutterers and to the speech therapy community. Kudos to the makers of this relatively low-budget film for raising social awareness of fluency, a communication challenge that is a struggle for an estimated 68 million people worldwide.

As most people now know, writer David Seidler was a childhood stutterer, but learned techniques to enhance his fluency skills, and became a remarkable, articulate gentleman. In a series of recent interviews, he’s shared his own story, and talked how he came to write the award-winning screenplay.

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/12/17/screenwriter-david-seidler-‘being-a-stutterer-puts-a-cloud-over-childhood’/

http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/18/kings-speech-writer-has-his-own-stutter-story.html

I particularly enjoyed this video interview in which he talks about his own history and that of The King’s Speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q6t_5sKTUk

The Stuttering Foundation is joining in the celebration of this most special motion picture, congratulating "The King's Speech, which had a royal night at the Oscars."  This non-profit organization a more than 60-year history focus on improving the lives of people with this speaking difficulty for more than 60 years.  To see their extensive online assistive resources, pay a visit to http://www.stutteringhelp.org/.

The National Stuttering Association, a large self-help organization, also applauds the increased public awareness this film brings to a problem they all share.  "... 'The King’s Speech,' focuses on the struggle of King George VI of Britain to come to terms with his stuttering and inspire a nation. We’re delighted to see a film that accurately depicts the experience of people who stutter through the compelling story of a real-life hero."    http://www.nsastutter.org/

Fluency is an ongoing challenge for people afflicted with this speech disability and speech therapists who work with them, but at least we’ve come a long way since the days when it was seen as a mental illness, something to be ashamed of and hidden. Or at least I hope we have!

Congratulations to David Seidler, Tom Hooper and Colin Firth for their excellent work!

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