Stuttering — We find out what it is, how it can affect your life and what you can do to help your stuttering.

Once again, it is what's involved. Good to have you along with us. We're chatting something a little different this evening and what we're chatting about is something I think that needs to be talked about, and that is stuttering. What it is, where does it come from, why it is, how it is, how we behave, we're gonna jump into all of that. I have got a couple of special guests with me. So let me introduce them in no particular order, but first up, we've got Dina Lillian, who is a speech therapist and she does a whole bunch of stuff. So when we get to Dina, we'll get all of her info there. How are you doing, Dina? - Good, thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to be on your show. And I think it's a very important topic. So thank you, yeah, for allowing us to speak about stuttering. - Wonderful. And another guest that we have is Wade Whitstock. Wade is somebody who has been challenged with stuttering. So welcome to you, Wade. - Yeah, so hi, David. And again, thanks for allowing us on your show. - And our third guest. If you are a listener to the show on a regular basis or a fairly regular basis, you will definitely recognize this man. He is Michael Haldane. Hello, Michael. - Good evening, David, from a cold Joburg Monday night.

- It is, eh? Winter's on its way. - Right, before we dive into this whole process, let's start off, and we're gonna go through each and every one of you, and just give me a little bit of your background. We'll start off with you, Dina. Tell me a little bit about what you've done, because I know that you have a fairly extensive CV. - Yes, thank you. And thank you for the opportunity again. So just a bit about myself. I'm a speech therapist with a special interest in stuttering. And I've been in the field for approximately 20 years, so quite a while. The reason I actually became a speech therapist was because as a child, I started quite severely. And I went to a couple of speech therapists until I found someone who actually helped me and gave me the tools to manage my stuttering. Once I was able to manage my stuttering, I decided that I wanted to go into the field of speech therapy and in order to help other people who study and give them the tools. So I went and I studied at first, and I proceeded to do my master's and did my research in stuttering. Then worked at Southland Hospital for nine years and went to work in Australia, where I did a couple of courses in just furthering my education about stuttering.

And I am the South African representatives for the International Stuttering Association and the International Fluency Association. And stuttering is so big internationally, and it is such a big international community. And they have conferences every three years. And I have been fortunate enough to attend them as a keynote speaker and as a person who stutters and just listening to the world about stuttering. And what I usually do is when I come back from these conferences, I organize conferences for speech therapists in order to give back some of my knowledge to them. I'm also, on the 22nd of October, is International Stuttering Awareness Day. And in the next couple of months, I plan to also host or organize a workshop for people who stutter, which has never been held here, which is great, and online obviously because of COVID. And also do a workshop for speech therapists. There's also SpeakEasy, which is a self-help group for people who stutter. And I'm the chairperson of that. Just recently, we actually held an online workshop, an online SpeakEasy meeting, which was amazing. So yeah, I currently have a private practice and in, sorry, just to backtrack. After I came back from Australia, I opened a stuttering clinic at the Donald Gordon Medical Center.

And at the moment, I currently have a private practice, seeing a lot of people who stutter of all ages based in the Norwood Therapy Center. And this is so important in terms of educating people about stuttering, telling them about stuttering and what stuttering is about, because people don't know about stuttering and sometimes are really afraid to talk about it. And that's, and Michael prompted this, and I thank him for all this, because it's so good and important to educate people, to tell people about it, the causes, what happens, treatment, is there a way forward? So just a bit about me, thank you. - Wonderful stuff. Wade, let's get on to you. Tell me a little bit about who Wade Woodstock is and yeah, your story. - All right, so I'm a financial planner and director for Global Local. I've been with Global Local for 13 years now, and we've had a lot of opportunities, which is quite funny because as a financial planner, one really has to use your voice and your speech

as tools, as tools of your job. So it's been very interesting. And it's actually funny 'cause I met Michael 30, I think 30 odd years ago at Speak Easy. So me and Michael have a very long history with our speech, going back many, many years. And so yeah, that's where, you know, that's how me and Michael met. And we've been part of Speak Easy as well since then. - Wonderful stuff. And then next up, Michael Haldane. Tell us a little bit about your story. - I'm 52, managing partner, founder, whatever it is of an investment company, happily married with a couple of lovely daughters and my wife, as you know, sings opera. I exercise every once in a while so that after I exercise, I can have beer.

Speech, I've had a

that since about age four. And it has been something that my whole life

I've had to handle, deal with. And unlike a physical illness, missing an arm, a deaf without eyes, it is something which isn't visible. And through time as the way it will actually outline later,

it's a daily fight. And both of us are in a industry where we have to survive by every day

talking and via talking,

convincing people to invest. Both of us are in a industry which is unbelievably difficult for people that stutter.

- All right, so let's get into and Dina, maybe you can help us out here. Exactly what is stuttering? - Yes, thank you for that. So stuttering is, I mean, when you speak, you speak to communicate and it's usually a forward flow of sounds from one sound to the next, from one word to the next. Stuttering is when there's a disruption of that forward flow of speech, either by repetitions, so what I've just done, or a block where nothing comes out. And usually when a person who stutters, there's either a primary stutter, which I've just described, or secondary stuttering where this may be accompanied by sometimes by hand movements, by leg movements, where a person is trying to force the word out. In addition to that, there may be some avoidances of words and substitution of words. And stuttering, I mean, that is all the, excuse me, the overt person, the overt stuttering, what a person can see. But stuttering can impact many areas of lives, in, you know, including creating a fear of public speaking and it can affect as a child, you know, the socially and asking questions in class and in the workplace, people may avoid presentations or afraid of interviews. So there's much more to stuttering than the actual overt behavior.

The over stuttering is compared to an iceberg at times. So the tip of the iceberg is the overt, what a person, what the listener may hear, may be the repetitions and the blocks, but there's a psychological component which results from the stuttering. It's not the cause, anxiety doesn't cause stuttering, it just exacerbates it. So the psychological component, as you can imagine, if a person battles to get a word out, it's not because that person who status doesn't know the word, they know the word, but it just doesn't come out. So it's maybe accompanied by obviously embarrassment and fear and may lead to avoidance and substitution. So stuttering can be quite complex, especially as the person grows older, where as a child, it's just a behavior, where as an adult and Michael and Wade will chat about this as well, there becomes a psychological component in addition to the, over the actual stutter.

Yeah, so that is what stuttering is. - Wonderful stuff, this is what's involved. We're talking stuttering tonight and my three special guests, Dina, Lily and Wade Whitstock and Michael Haldane. When we come back, we'll be finding out a little bit more about that, finding out some facts and figures and what causes it, all of that when we come back. And we're back with my special guests. We have Dina Lillian, who is a speech therapist amongst other things, Wade Whitstock and Michael Haldane. So Michael, knowing you as I've come to know you, and I wanna start off, and this is part of the reason that I wanted to do the show, because way back when you guys approached MIX FM and you spent some time sponsoring my business show, and we were gonna do live interviews in the old days, back in the olden times when we were allowed to be sitting in a studio close to each other. And some of the people at the station came to me and said, listen, this is what they wanna do, but Michael stutters. And I thought, okay, how is this gonna go out on radio? Because radio is something that is a very immediate thing and voice and pitch and tone and all of those things have a huge role to play. And eventually I thought, you know what?

This is something we need to do. And Michael came on and from that first note on, I don't think I received one complaint about Michael stuttering or about the quality of your voice or anything like that. And that is a testament both to yourself and to our listeners. But tell me about some facts, Michael, about stuttering. - Number one, we are seven people because our brains think probably a minute ahead. We think in maybe five, six sentences ahead. We think in every single word we would possibly block on and then we are finding the words in our head, which isn't on Google. So famous people, Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe,

Aristotle, King George have all

darted in their lives. It is a block for me. It is a total blockage of air where I cannot get a word out. And I have good days and I have off days. And it is something which I have spent my life thinking about

and thinking of a cause. Why did it actually happen? And when I was about age four, I'd read a nursery little report

which said Michael plays nicely with his friends in the sand, but he has a problem with certain words. So happened from a very, very early age. No one else in my family has ever had any issues. In fact, my family talks more than any other, I think,

and they just won't ever be quiet, but that's another issue.

And it's the biggest asset I have in life because everybody has to listen harder. And once I have said something once, I will never ever forget it. - Yeah, that is true. But I mean, we're gonna get onto what society does and how society in general behaves and treats people who do stutter. I just find it incredibly kind of ironic that a really difficult word for a lot of people is actually stuttering. And even myself, who doesn't have much of a speech defect, battles with that as well. You would have thought they could have got another word for that. Anyway, let's move on to you, Wade, and talk a little bit about causes of stuttering because so often I have heard, they go, oh yes, oh yes, so-and-so is a stutter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's childhood trauma. Is that it or is it not it? Where are you with this? - Right, so as the person who actually has a stutter, obviously, one would do quite a lot of research into this. And I've heard so much stuff from, yeah, like I said, childhood trauma, which hasn't happened to me. I've heard about maybe it's genetic. At one stage people were trying to find out it was genetic. I think there's so many different causes of people stuttering, David. And I think each person has a unique stutter.

I don't think one stutter is the same as the next, which again, will kind of make it a little bit hard to care because I think we all have our various kind of different stutters. So I don't think there is one particular cause that I'm aware of. And so, yeah, like I said, I've done quite a lot of research and there's been the procures out there and kind of sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. - Okay, Dina, I want you to weigh in here on this because you, as you've just said, and I would never have guessed it chatting to you initially, but you said that you are a stutterer as well. Is there a cure? - Yes, that's the million dollar question. And stuttering has been around for ages. If one believes in the Old Testament, Moses stutters, as Michael said, even Joe Biden, the president of America stutters. So is there a cure for stuttering? At the moment, there is no known cure for stuttering, but there's definitely ways to manage stuttering. And if one goes to a speech therapist who has a special interest in stuttering, one can definitely make significant progress towards fluency and managing stuttering. And managing one's fluency, I mean, as you can hear with Michael and Wade, I mean, even myself, we all stutter, but yet we able to manage it and it doesn't, I mean, I'm speaking about half of Michael and Wade and they can speak for themselves as well.

But for myself, it doesn't impact on my quality of life. I'm able to do what I want to do, when I want to do, how I want to do it. So at the moment, there's no known cure for stuttering, but there's definitely ways to manage it. Obviously, depending, I mean, every child goes through a period of normal disfluency, 85% of children outgrow it, some children don't. So it also depends on how old the child is, et cetera. But usually if a person is stuttering in towards that output, it's probably gonna be there to a greater or lesser degree. - Nadineh, how prevalent is stuttering in our South African society? - Well, statistics and the figures and the research the research that has been completed says 1% of the population stutters across all nationalities, all cultures, all religions, all races. And I know you asked Wade about the etiology, the cause of stuttering. And research says, and I'm quoting here, it's a complex interplay of a number of different factors. But 65% of people who stutter, there is stuttering in the families. So there's a strong genetic link. That does not mean if there's no stuttering in your family, your child will stutter, or if there is stuttering in your family, your child will stutter.

So it's definitely not a direct association, but there is an increased risk factor. Another interesting fact is that what do you think? Is the majority of people who stutter male or female, David, in your experience? - I've actually had limited experience in that. I would say male. Yeah, I'd say male. - Absolutely. So one in every four is a female, one in every four or five. So the majority of people who stutter are male. - And here we go saying that women always have the most to say. Obviously, the men do it as well. All right, so multiple causes, no cure. Let me move over quickly back to Michael and ask you this, Michael. Treatment, obviously, 'cause Wade also mentioned, I think you said speak easy. So is there a form of treatment? - There is. So I can remember back to when I was about age seven, living in Durban, I had therapy once a week and my absolute highlight was after therapy, every time my mom bought me a nice chocolate. And it helped for a bit. I had therapy up until I think about age 11. And then only again as an adult and I just had a complete mental block with therapy.

It helped me, but for me, it just felt unnatural.

But why did it always did? It actually got me thinking that there are other people like me and that I'm not alone. And through absolute thick and thin, I just, every day, every sentence is a mission.

I have to think of every word. I have to focus on my oxygen flow.

It's like walking, if you have legs, walking as a natural function. Talking as a natural function form is everybody, but not for us. We have to physically think of words and that at times is not easy at all. - I can't imagine because just trying to put myself in you guys shoes is like you said, you have to be thinking way ahead of where you're talking because you have to kind of go, okay, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna answer? Is this a word that's a challenge for me? Is there another word that I could put in there? It must be exhausting and I can understand why so many people would wanna hide away. I mean, I can't imagine my life, for example, if I wasn't for the most part able to speak clearly. So hats off to you guys that are able to do it.

- If I can add on there, therapy works for a lot of people.

So some it works for some others, but it gives all of us hope and that is a vital thing. - Yeah, absolutely. When we come back, I wanna have a little bit of a chatter to Wade and see what his feelings are on that. It is what's involved. My special guests, Dina Lillian, Wade Woodstock, Michael Haldane, we're talking stuttering, we'll be back in just a bit. And we're back with my special guests, Dina, Wade, and Michael. Wade, in terms of treatment for stuttering, how have you found that to be? - Right, David. So 100%, you know, we have joined SpeakEasy when we were fairly young, which was quite nice, because first of all, it kind of shows you that you're not alone with the speech problem. And you can share with people who are on the same page. All right. Speech therapy, I went for a lot of speech therapy when I was younger. And yes, it definitely did help as well. So definitely, I think to try and cure speech problems,

all tools will kind of help you. The way I'm speaking now was not the way I spoke 30 years ago. I would use a lot of hand gestures to try and bash out a word.

So it was very difficult and frustrating. Then I also went out with a very nice lady. We mentioned that maybe I should go to a public speaking course for really normal people. So this is my thing I would really recommend for a lot of people who have a speech problem. - Wait. - Yeah. - Wait, we are normal. Everyone else isn't normal. - Absolutely, absolutely, Michael. So it was very frustrating and painful experience. They actually have to go out there. I mean, it took me two weeks to say that my name was Wade. While everyone else was on to a whole lot of kind of normal speeches. That wasn't the cure for my speech problem, however, I think it was quite a large breakthrough for me, as painful as it was.

Again, I also use, I do use quite a few techniques. Kind of replace words, breathing techniques. Michael mentioned that you think in two sentences ahead. That's 100% right, you are. You're always thinking two sentences ahead and your mind is trying to think which word it's gonna block on. And it's going through various words that are gonna replace that one word. So yeah, it can be very frustrating. But as I've grown older, I think I've managed to learn to learn to control it a lot more. And I think some people do tend to maybe outgrow it and get kind of some kind of normal speech going. - All right, Dina, back to you very quickly though, because I'm assuming with somebody who stutters that the anxiety and the stress could also make it worse. Because if you're sitting thinking, oh, no, now I have to do this and I have to do that and I don't want to make myself look stupid or whatever the case may be, does that not also contribute to stuttering? - Absolutely, David, 100%. So when I explain stuttering to parents or even to adults, we talk about the three P's, the predisposition of precipitating and perpetuating factors. Everyone in life is born with a predisposition to be told to be short.

And with a person who stutters, they are born for whatever reason and the research is being done in terms of the gene and stuttering and et cetera. The person who stutters for whatever reason is born with a predisposition to stutter. Stuttering usually, and there are different types of stuttering, but with a developmental person who stutters, which is the majority of people who I see and talking to Michael and Wade, developmental person who stutters, which is when a child just doesn't grow out of that disfluency. So with a developmental person who stutters, the anxiety doesn't cause the stuttering, the anxiety just exacerbates the stuttering. So it increases the stuttering, which is why in a special situation where a person who doesn't stutter would be disfluent, a person who does stutter would be even more disfluent. And that's why going back to at the beginning of the show, when you asked me about what is stuttering, I talked about the overt stutter, which a person can hear, which is your prolongations or your blocks and your repetitions. But the other part is your covert stutter, which is the psychological impact, which is the anxiety. And that's why within therapy and what Michael and Wade talked about, therapy targets, depending on the therapist you go to, but targets giving the individual techniques to manage the moment of stuttering.

So you can imagine how helpless and disempowered a person may feel when they're trying to say a word, especially their name. And Wade was talking about this. Wade took him so long to say their name. And it's ironic that a person who stutters most, not most people, but some people battle on their name. So were they talking about their name and when they're battling to say their name? So it's about giving the tools and techniques to get the word out, but then at the same time, looking at some of the thoughts and the feelings around that. Does that make sense? - That makes sense indeed. So now you talk about children and obviously this is when, in the formative years when stuttering becomes a parent, what about stuttering as a child versus stuttering as an adult? Does age play a role? Because so often, and I mentioned this earlier, you hear, oh yeah, I know so and so stutters, but don't worry, they'll grow out of it. - Yes, and thanks for that question. And absolutely, it depends on the age. So like I said, between the ages of two to five years old, there is normal disfluency, but most kids outgrow it and some kids don't. Early intervention is really important. So there's a difference between normal disfluency and stuttering like disfluency.

Normal disfluency is like one or two repetitions. So stuttering disfluency is, stuttering disfluency is when there's sound repetitions or blocks. So if this is picked up in like a child older than the age of five years old or a bit younger, it's important to get that child to a speech therapist just to see whether it is stuttering. Because obviously, as a child develops and there becomes anxiety around it, there's more to treat. And some people who start to close down and shut down and don't want to talk and avoiding questions in class. And we obviously don't want a child to do that, which is why also in therapy, what's really important is empowering that individual, giving them tools and techniques where if they get stuck on a word, how do they get that word out? - Yeah, okay. So early intervention is very, very, very important. This is what's involved and we are talking stuttering tonight. When we come back, we'll be wrapping up with my three guests, Dina, Lily and Wade Woodstock and Michael Haldane. And we're back, wrapping it up. Michael, I wanna jump across to you. And one of the things that I wanna get up right now is in terms of non-stutteries, okay? What must we never ever do if somebody does stutter?

Because you're, you see, now I'm getting ahead of myself here. Here comes the ADD. In terms of you as a human being, if somebody is stuttering or you see them as battling, the first thing you wanna do is jump in and complete the word or complete the sentence. We like to think of it as being altruistic, but it's actually just, I think us going, could you just hurry it up? What are your feelings there? What must we do and what must we not do? - That is my absolute hate. If someone finishes my sentence, on purpose I will, on purpose that word, I will say it for at least another 30 seconds,

just to really piss them off. So never ever finish a sentence or a word. If someone does keep eye contact with someone

then don't look away. Don't look embarrassed. There isn't anything to be embarrassed about.

It's a completely natural thing.

And don't try to rush them. They know what they say. They just need a bit longer time. And if they are really blocked and they're having an awful, awful time, just sit back, relax and let them finish.

I have a memory, I think I was 18. I was giving my final oral in Afrikaans and it means it was an oral over five minutes. I think it took me one hour. I have never seen such suffering of people before my Afrikaans teachers hadn't had clue how to handle that situation.

I think just encourage them. If it's family, love them. If it's friends, it's just how it is. If it is someone at work who has a problem,

tell them about this show. Ask them to contact Dina. There is help. There are options and we are just people like you.

- Absolutely. Wade, how do you cope? I mean, you're in a place at Global and Local, both you and Michael do start a bit, but how do you cope with it in your everyday life, both work and home? 'Cause it can't be easy. - No, it's not, however, from having a speech problem really my whole life, is what I do find that from 30 years ago, maybe 40 years ago to where we are now, there's a much larger social awareness locally and worldwide with regards to people who have speech problems. Way back then, there was no Google and people didn't know how to handle it or treats or anything like that. So I do believe there's a much larger awareness of it now and people understand it better than they did long ago, which will also help people who have speech problems now. And how I handle it, I think when I deal with a client that I actually get so involved in talking with a client that I actually forget to start, I think. - That's actually quite interesting. Sorry, Michael, you wanted to add something. - If I can interrupt, as Wade said earlier, I've known him for 30 years. 13 years ago, I thought he would be a fantastic advisor because if in those days he was single and at pubs, he could talk beautifully to lovely ladies.

So I thought this guy talks beautifully, he'll be a fantastic investment advisor, as with the slide. - But this isn't interesting thing though. This, as Wade said, you forget to stutter. I mean, if I think back many years ago to, what was the name, Gareth Gates, he was on one of those "America's Got Talent or Pop Idol" or whatever it was, he really battled speaking and yet he sang like an absolute angel. Dina, is that something that happens if you get out of one situation into another? - Yes, you know, some interesting facts about stuttering is that people who stutter don't stutter when they sing. Usually they don't stutter when they talk to animals. And in terms of singing, I mean, it's an interesting observation that there's no single answer for why this phenomena occurs. Scientists and researchers have worked hard to answer many difficult questions. However, with singing, there's still a debate. There's evidence that when the brain functions differently for singing than it does for talking, and music uses the right side of the brain where speaking uses the left side of the brain. And at the moment of stuttering, it's found that there's less activity at the moment of stuttering in the language areas.

So, I mean, the question is, did the less activity cause a stuttering or did the stuttering cause the less activity? Is it the chicken before the egg, egg before the chicken, we don't know. But so for singing, you use a different side of the brain. And also with singing, there's no time pressure and no communicative pressure. But that's something that's really known that when a person sings, they don't stutter. When they rap, you don't stutter. When you're talking unison, one person doesn't stutter or whisper. So those are some of the interesting phenomenon around stuttering. - It is truly something fascinating, but for somebody that lives with stuttering, I can only imagine the challenges. And again, I'll say to you, the three of you, you're incredibly brave for being open about this and talking about this. Let me start off with you, Michael, as we wrap up here. When did you win this mental game over stuttering? When did you get to the stage where you were just like, screw it, I stutter. I'm gonna make my life a success anyway. - To be honest, there were a couple of events, around 15 or no longer. I was age 27. My daughter was a month old. I had a monthly debit orders, which were in excess of what I had in the bank.

And I was tired of my job and I left my job and I could only find a job as a life agent and better than advisor. And I thought this is the hardest possible job I can do in order to survive, I have to talk. And at that time, I really, every third word was a block. Within a couple of months at my agency, out of about 15 people, I was number one. And all of them looked at me in amazement and said, why? And I said, because I stutter,

it makes me different. That was number one. Number two, Deena, I had therapy with her, nine years ago, 10 odd years ago, 'cause I had to at our company annual conference, I had to give the opening remarks.

I was MC and up until that time, I'd always asked someone else. And I thought, enough now, I have to get up there and talk. And I had about five or six sessions with her, Deena. And on the morning of that lecture talk,

I just woke up and thought, just be yourself. And from them, it hasn't been an issue anymore. - Wonderful stuff. Wait, your story, when did you also just go, listen, this is it, this is who I am, kind of deal with it. - Well, I think David, for me, I think that's an everyday challenge. You use it every day and you have to work with it every day. What I do when I end up having a really bad block is I put myself into really uncomfortable positions, like maybe I'll do phone calls to people I don't know. And I just put myself into uncomfortable positions to just to reaffirm that I can do it.

- Yeah, so talk about a challenge, that most certainly is. And Deena, yourself, because I think it's quite amazing that you are a stuttery yourself and yet you've gotten into the field that you've gotten into. - Yeah, absolutely. And I've done that and it's been amazing, the journey for myself, the journey helping individuals. I mean, Michael's journey, I've met, I know Michael and Wade, I met them years ago at SpeakEasy. I mean, I was 16 at the time. And it's amazing, Wade talks about being alone and in terms of stuttering and not knowing. And this is what SpeakEasy is, is a self-help group for people who stutter. And that's when my journey started as a person who stutters and then I obviously became a speech therapist. And I mean, it's, and through that, through working with people who stutter, always say I'm quite lucky 'cause I can decide which side of the table to sit on to be a speech therapist or a person who stutters. But it's been an incredible journey for me and it still is. And the whole thing now and the show is getting stuttering out there, educating people about it. Michael was talking about when he was saying his speech at school. And schools, some teachers don't even know how to deal with stuttering.

I saw an individual yesterday for therapy. He's 42 at the time. And his teacher made him stand up in front of a class and say an oral. And that's just because of lack of education. And it's important, and this is part of the show and why we're all on it. To just teach people about it the best way to help a person who stutters. And whether it's, there's an element of internal motivation which is so important as Michael talked about. If you woke up one day and he decided that's it. Wade talks about a continuous working on yourself. And that's what it is for most people who stutter. Once people have the tools, it's that mind power which is really important. And whether people go to a therapist and achieve it by learning tools and techniques, by a speech therapist who has a special interest in stuttering or by attending a self-help group, Speak Easy. And I'm just gonna give the address if anyone wants to see it at speakeasy.org.za. That's S-P-E-A-K-E-A-S-Y.org.za. It's a lovely opportunity to meet other people who stutter because people who stutter sometimes don't know that they aren't alone. So all of this is just a journey. And then encouraging individuals when they're having a difficult time or a difficult phone call like Wade chatted about.

- Wonderful stuff. So the single best, just before I let you guys go, the single best place then to start off is speakeasy.org.za. So what do you do if you're a parent and you're listening to this and your child has a speech problem? Where would you go there? Speak Easy, the same place? - Well, I think there's no one answer. I think if one wants a self-help group to meet other people who stutter, Speak Easy is a place. Otherwise, contacting a speech therapist who has a special interest with stuttering is a really good place to start. And that speech therapist will guide the individual in terms of whether the child needs therapy, if the child's below five years old or a child or an adult who wants to address their stuttering 'cause there is hope. And some people are in such a dark place about their stuttering and avoid situations. They, at work, if you can imagine if they, and as Michael said, many times he would avoid giving presentations. Children in class may avoid answering questions, may play dumb when it's their turn, they leave and go to the bathroom in inverted commas just because they have that fear of speaking. So there is hope out there. And I think to contact a speech therapist who has a special interest in stuttering, they will come to contact me as well.

I'll give you my phone number or my email address is D-I-N-A dot [email protected] That's Dina dot [email protected] or SpeakEasy or a speech therapist who has a special interest in stuttering. - Wonderful stuff. And that wraps it up for this particular part of what's involved. Dina, Wade, Michael, thank you so much for taking the time out and having a chat to us. We wish you all the best going forward. And hopefully people will become more aware of this and it'll become easier to talk about and to address. Thank you guys. - Thank you. - Thank you David. - It's an absolute pleasure. And there we go, wraps it up for what's involved. Until next time, look after yourselves. Take care and thank you for listening.