Help Me To Speak

This is a documentary that follows three young people who live in England and have problems with stuttering (or stammering, as they call it in Britain). The three people in the documentary are Mudiaga Eghweree, Joanne Murphy and Nathan Stevens. They all have dreams of what they would like to do with their lives.

Mudiaga would like to be a graphic designer but is worried he won't get into a university because of his speech difficulty. Joanne would like to be a teacher when she grows up and Nathan dreams of becoming an actor.

The documentary follows them for a year. Joanne has had some speech therapy but during the documentary, is stuck on a waiting list to receive services. She was on the waiting list for nine months when she got fed up and decided to call the people in charge of the list. After her call, she was assessed by a speech therapist again and was told her stuttering had improved.

Mudiaga had a really hard time of it. He has the kind of stuttering where he gets stuck on one part of a word. In saying "What time is it?" he would say, "W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-what t-t-t-t-t-t-t-time is it?" He went to speech therapy and was taught some tricks to help him talk more fluently. He was able to and near the end of the documentary was able to interview at a university and even approach a girl and have a conversation with her...

Nathan is an aspiring actor. He has had a hard time for a while and six years before the documentary was filmed, one of his brothers died. He was only three weeks old. There are a number of people who begin stuttering after a traumatic experience. His stuttering just got worse. He was in a play and had only a few lines, but during rehearsals could not say his lines without stuttering. At the end of the documentary it came time for the play. He was really nervous but when he delivered his lines, you wouldn't know he had any kind of problem. It was amazing!

This was a fantastic movie and I recommend it to anyone interested in stuttering in any way. Here is the link for the video:

http://www.documentary-log.com/you-are-watching-help-me-to-speak/