Are You Emb-b-b-barrassed?

The citizens of Charlottesville, Va. were a bit disconcerted at first. It was hard to know what to say when a child rang the doorbell and asked: "Are you emb-b-b-barrassed when you t-t-talk t-t-to a stutterer?" But by last week, Charlottesville had grown used to the question. It was all part of a special treatment, prescribed by the nearby Woodrow Wilson Speech Camp at the University of Virginia.

In its four summers of existence, the camp has brought new hope to scores of afflicted youngsters. Today they come from all over the state. Some are deaf; some have cleft palates. Some stutter so badly that they have to wave their arms, stamp their feet or fall to the floor before they can speak. One boy's vocal cords had been seared with acid. A 17-year-old farm boy had grown so afraid of speaking that he insisted on writing everything.

Director Ben Andrews, a stutterer himself, offers no one treatment for all cases. For plain stuttering, some 20 types of treatment are used in the U.S., but none ever cures the defect entirely. Andrews' aim is limited: to remove the fear of stuttering, then reduce the amount.

To remove the fear, Director Andrews and his 15-man staff have their work cut out for them. They point out that even a normal person stumbles or hesitates in his speech at the rate of five to eight times a minute, that the worst thing a stutterer can do is to try to hide his defect. Stutterers are encouraged to read aloud, to exaggerate their stutter, joke about it. Each summer they are sent out to talk to at least 200 strangers. They keep notes on how those strangers react, and are amazed to find that only one in 100 would ever dream of ridiculing them. As their fear melts away, the stutterers relax and begin to face their handicap.

For other speech defects, the camp takes sterner measures. Some children, unable to pronounce certain consonants, sound as if they were still talking baby talk. Such children are often unaware of their own faulty articulation. They must be carefully drilled in different sounds, listen to recordings of their own voices, practice lists of nonsense syllables in front of the mirror.

Last week, as camp broke up, Director Andrews had one last assignment for his 52 charges. When each gets back to his regular school, he is to give a speech before his class called "My summer at speech camp." As far as Director Andrews knows, not one of his pupils has yet balked.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.