The Best Three Days of My Life at FRIENDS (Ep. 590)

Juliette and Josette Tugander with Caryn Hetting
Juliette and Josette Tugander with Caryn Herring

Josette Tugander, a young woman who stutters, and her mother Juliette Tugander join Caryn Herring at the 2016 annual convention of FRIENDS: The National Association of Young People Who Stutter. They discuss taking down stuttering walls and being aware of the walls we build.

Other topics include the power of stuttering support, how people who stutter inspire each other at FRIENDS to be brave with stuttering and the important stuttering moments which happen outside of the workshops at FRIENDS. Josette and Caryn share how helpful it has been seeing peers and role models who stutter face stuttering challenges.

Josette shares the experience of attending a FRIENDS convention when she was in high school and being inspired by a college student who discussed the importance of telling your roommate about stuttering. Now in college herself, Josette shares how open she is about her own stuttering in college and that her friends and roommates are even in the room sometimes during her Skype speech therapy sessions.

The FRIENDS conference takes place July 28-30 in Columbus. Ohio.

Caryn Herring is a person who stutters and a speech-language pathologist, currently pursuing her PhD at The University of Pittsburgh. Caryn is also an adjunct clinical instructor at Duquesne University, supervising graduate students and teaching the Stuttering Course. She is an active member of numerous stuttering organizations.