Thank you very much for printing the inspiring story about Tristan Roeder and how he overcame a major speech impediment.

His experience with stuttering very nearly mirrors my own as an elementary-school pupil. I was made fun of and even bullied by peers, and yelled at by impatient adults who didn’t understand, thinking that one could simply “snap out of it.” In the process of overcoming the problem, my speech patterns also changed. To this day, like Roeder, I am often asked by strangers where I’m from. Overcoming stuttering made my life easier, but I still had to face the wrath of a few classmates who resented my new speech, wanting to attack me for “talkin’ proper” or accusing me of putting on “airs.” There was no way to make them understand that their familiar mode of speaking simply did not work for me. In spite of everything, freedom from stuttering was an enormous self-esteem booster and I was not about to return to it.

Dianna Penny