Day 2, 4th Mini ComWS

(above: Stammering interviews in the OPD)

There are lot of questions tumbling out of the three participants; It has been tough job to stick to planned schedule. In the morning we completed watching Unspeakable and the discussion about its message. Then, we went to OPD for “Stammering Interviews” exercise; some bouncing exercise with strangers- also: staying in the moment and watching our reactions (body, mind, emotions). Lunch at Bheem’s.

After lunch, Raju took Lalit and Ajai for some more voluntary bouncing at the nearby bus stand. We began at 3 pm. Tarun’s video- where he recounts one of the situations where stammering turned to his advantage. That got us talking about such a possibility: can we ever see the brighter side of the whole experience? What attitudinal change will be necessary for this? etc. Next exercise was videography and analysis of our own mock interviews. Eye opener!

Next, we saw some hand picked videos: false positive and false negatives. We PWS often pride ourselves that we can spot a PWS easily no matter how hard he is trying to hide his disfluencies. But everyone failed: one person who sounded ‘normal’ was actually PWS. A ‘normal’ speaker’s clip got labeled as stammering! The point being made was: Disfleuncies are a normal part of human speech. When we learn to react to them abnormally they become stammering. In other words we need to change our self-concept and the concept of “normal speech” too, as we go along. In the evening, the group went to Vikasnagar with their assignments.