“The virtual stuttering course has been one of the best investments I have made in myself. From day one, I felt in an environment of support and understanding. Not only are the instructors experts on the subject, but they also demonstrate genuine empathy, which made each session motivating and effective. The course content is very comprehensive and designed in a practical way. I learned breathing techniques, anxiety management, and strategies to communicate more fluently in various situations. What I value most is that it provided me with the necessary tools to face my fears and gain confidence, not only when speaking, but in my daily life. I recommend this course to anyone looking for real, lasting change. It has been a transformative experience.”

A great course was held virtually for the Latin America and Spain Region of the McGuire Programme. The third virtual course of the year for the region making new initiatives raising our voices about who we are as the McGuire organization and what we do, and why who we are is so important for the world, if we are people who stutter or if we have family and/or acquaintances.

For this course, activities were carried out to reinforce the foundations and principles of the new students and for the graduates and assistant coaches to reinforce areas of our own speech in the real world.

We had a very varied participation from different locations in Latin America: students from Mexico and Paraguay, graduates and coaches from Colombia, Chile, New York, Mexico, Spain, Argentina. The new students were very brave to take a definitive step to begin communicating effectively and assertively in front of their world.

Our communication is our social personality, how we are perceived and experienced in front of the world. That’s why it’s so important to overcome our blocks and the discomfort of living a life pretending to be normal and fluid.

All the participants showed a lot of emotion and enthusiasm, since we did the preparation session of the course, all committed to continue building a more powerful speech for any situation of exposure in front of others.

We say this is a journey into a very different stuttering experience, changing how we feel before, during, and after a challenging situation. Understanding what we can do when we feel that words or sounds will have difficulty, and how to replace the negative responses of stuttering with tools that allow us to increase the feeling of control in times of turbulence or panic.

In this great course we were able to do desensitization activities such as phone calls, improvisation, theatricality – applying the motto of letting go of everything that does not serve us and having fun!

During this course we work on the physical aspects of stuttering as well as the psychological pieces that affects us as people who stutter. Cycle of panic, self-actualization, conflicts of multi-focus evasion, overkilling, our assertive rights. Seeing new students take on challenges that were previously impossible is a sense of admiration and a lot of respect – overcoming our deepest fears takes courage.

Arriving to the last day of the course, all the minutes of practice are gathered, all the new evidence of being able to say the sounds that did not came out before, being able to control my emotions and my body in challenging situations and all the new smiles and the new attitudes towards the real world.

To conclude:
Thank you to all the participants, graduates and coaches. Thank you to the members who received the calls from the new students. Let’s continue to make a change in our communication, changing how the world perceives stuttering. Let’s continue to make a change in how people who stutter communicate and let’s be an example that adversities in life can be overcome.