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Stuttering group hails ‘King’s Speech’ for honest portrayal
Jessica Rush / Staff Photo - As part of last week’s meeting, the local National Stuttering Association chapter crowned their new chapter leader, Andrew Bowers, as a tribute to ‘The King’s Speech.’
By Jessica Rush, jrush@acnpapers.com
In a moving scene from the Oscar-nominated movie “The King’s Speech,” speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) begins provoking King George VI (Colin Firth), who stammers. While Logue lounges on the king’s throne – a social taboo for the time – the king struggles with his speech impediment and finding the words to force the therapist to move.
“Why should I listen to you?” Logue asks.
“Because I have a voice!” the king powerfully responds.
Plano resident Dr. Lee Reeves is a veterinarian at Lancer Square Animal Clinic and the founder of the National Stuttering Association’s Dallas chapter. For nearly 30 years, the group has continued to meet on the last Tuesday of every month at the Callier Center for Communication Disorders.
Reeves considers himself a lifelong stutterer. He started his first self-help group at Texas A&M University while in college. After graduating from veterinary school, he moved to the Dallas area and suffered a relapse, where his stuttering condition regressed.
“I had a difficult time finding a professional who understood what I was going through,” Reeves said.
His frustration led him to the Callier Center, where the UT Dallas campus encouraged him to organize a support group. Now, speech language pathology graduate students in the program also attend the meetings to understand what a textbook cannot always convey – the reality and emotions that come for the person who stutters.
During the meeting, words such as “angry,” “frustrated” and “disappointed” get thrown out when speaking about how a person can negatively react to his/her speech handicap. Lee, who facilitated Tuesday night’s discussion, said most stutterers are told from childhood that they are speaking incorrectly, and they grow up with the idea something is wrong with them.
It can make public speaking a terrifying prospect.
“Being nervous doesn’t cause us to stutter; stuttering causes us to be nervous,” Lee said.
The NSA groups help provide a warm, non-hostile environment for people in a variety of stuttering stages, from very severe to small traces of stammering.
“It plants a seed in them, that, ‘Wow, first of all, I’m not alone; there are others like me,’” Reeves said. “You see people literally change before your eyes. It’s amazing.”
Reeves said he has seen individuals who slowly opened up, standing and introducing themselves, eventually helping to facilitate discussions and furthering progress outside of meetings by applying for promotions at work that require strong communication skills.
Stuttering is the oldest speech disorder known to man, and, Reeves said, while his stuttering is mostly under control these days, facing the problem and working through the issue helps to keep him grounded.
“I am nonetheless a person who stutters,” he said. “The day that I run away or try to deny who I am is the day is my stuttering gets worse.”
As part of last week’s meeting, the group crowned their new chapter leader, Andrew Bowers, as a tribute to “The King’s Speech.” They want around the room talking about how the movie spoke to stutterers and non-stutterers alike. Some noted the accurate portrayal of fear and the gamut of emotions a stutterer faces when looking out on an expectant crowd; others remembered the royal family’s often-harsh reactions to this issue or the depth of the relationship between the king and his therapist.
It’s not often that stutterers are portrayed honestly in movies. Usually the characteristic is attributed to someone with a personality defect, an idiot or a person trying to talk too fast.
“It’s very offensive,” Bowers said. “The King’s Speech is the first movie that shows we are more than just stutterers. We are intelligent. We have more to offer.”
The uplifting message has brought movie theater audiences across the nation to their feet in applause at the movie’s credits, and the fans will be hoping “The King’s Speech” takes home plenty of awards tonight.
“We all have issues,” Reeves said. “The theme here is triumph over challenge.”
The NSA’s national conference will be held in Fort Worth this year from July 6-10 at the Worthington Renaissance Hotel. Screenwriter David Seidler of “The King’s Speech” will be the keynote speaker for the event. For information about the conference or the organization, visit www.nsastutter.org.
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