Resources

What is Free and Fair Use

Below are various resources developed or curated by TISA over the years; Feel free to copy and share freely. You may (we will be very happy) translate them in regional languages and different formats too- like, you could read out “Apna Hath Jagannath”, the self-help manual, and share it as a series of podcast. Feel free to share the link with us.

The Self Help Manual (Hindi & Eng)

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Apna Hath Jagannath, a self help manual, which many pws have found useful. It discusses the true nature of the problem, what can be done, various tools and approaches to recovery, how acceptance helps and life beyond recovery. (pdf: Hindi, English)

Twelve Questions: A primer

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Published in 2007 with valuable help from Samagra Trust, Dehradun, this booklet offered answers for common questions about stammering. It was used an entry point activity: a hard copy was donated to school library as an introduction to TISA, before working with children in the school. A good primer. (Hindi, English)

Hindi Book on Acceptance

acceptance

A mini book in Hindi to explore various shades and nuances of acceptance- and how it sets you free psychologically, to move ahead and grow. In TISA workshops, we explore various dimensions of acceptance: at psychological level, it might mean being no more “touchy” about stammering; at cognitive level it may mean going beyond obsessive need to monitor one’s own fluency and listener’s reactions all the time. At emotional level- it may mean- giving up all sadness and “victimhood” and participating in the joy of life; stop postponing things. At physiological plain, it may mean- that we no more tense up, hold our breath and struggle in that moment of difficulty: we stammer effortlessly. Acceptance simply means: accepting what IS. Being at PEACE with this moment and move ahead calmly. The writer, Amit Kushwaha, is a prolific Hindi writer. (Hindi) (English)

A Hindi Essay on stammering

A brief essay which explores what is stammering and what can be done about it – written for general audience. Three pages as JPG images, can be printed and shared. (link)

Stories

The Child: A mythological fantasy (Part 1, Part 2)

Can children differentiate between fact and fantasy? Are the capable of lying, as we adults are? A little lie

A recollection of a pet dog, named after a BBC presenter – Tim Sebastian

Three micro-stories on lock down in Hindi – तीन लघु कथाएँ 

ISAD Contributions

Many of us have been contributing to Online Conference to commemorate International Stammering Awareness Day (22nd Oct.). It was initially started and organised by Judith Kuster, and later by ISA. Here are some links. Of course other papers are also worth reading. Viren Gandhi has been creating a single file of all the conference papers ever since 2002 (like this).

Prakhar Sachan (2006 ISAD paper).

Prem Kumar (2007, ISAD, Intro video)

Translation by Sachin (2007 ISAD, Link)

Self Vs self by Sachin (2008 ISAD, link)

Manimaran and JP ( 2010, ISAD paper on Self Help groups)

Sachin’s paper (2010, ISAD, What we actually need)

Vivek Singh, Pune, (2011, ISAD, My journey)

Harish Usgaonker (2011, ISAD, The Magic Interview)

Dhruv Gupta (2013, ISAD, Turn Around Thinking)

Sachin (2014 ISAD, The Indian Story)

Vipul Patil (2016, ISAD, Mind war)

Pune/Mumbai SHG (2016, ISAD, People who buffer)

Abhinav Bakshi (2016, ISAD, School Chale ham)

Life Beyond Stammering

Beyond Stammering?

What lies beyond stammering? Who am I when I am neither fluent, nor stammering? What role am I playing when I am just quiet? When I am in deep sleep? These are some of the questions we ask, when we have gone beyond the misleading binary of fluency Vs Disfluency, set up by the society and our own expectations. Some of us did so, and were greatly helped in our inquiry by many great teachers, from east as well as west. Many of us have tried Vipassana, Brahma Vidya and other paths based on meditative traditions. We actively encourage pws to explore these paths because one of the phenomena seen in stammering is “Loss of self” or alienation: we do not belong anywhere because we stammer (that is what we believe). And this leads to a lot of inner suffering. This can lead to a deeper search but often is stifled by such notions: Just fix your stammering and everything will be ok!

It is quite legitimate and useful to ask: who am I beyond my stammering? It will be quite unfortunate if we went away happily after getting some relief thru Stuttering modification, fluency shaping, DAF/FAF gadget stuck in our ears, CBT, “life altering workshops” teaching us to be our authentic  (but fluent) self – without exploring the nature of Self itself. Who are we? Who is it who wants to be fluent at any cost? and then what?

To be an Indian pws and not wonder about these questions, is like being an American who never saw Disneyland!

Here we share some resources:

 

 

Izabella, the princess who stammered

Izabella - Children's story

A beautiful story from Beata Akerman of Romania (her ISAD paper), for siblings and the family of a child who stammers. You may take turns at reading it at bedtime. Great story for practicing a role play with friends or siblings and to have fun. Captures well the feelings and expectations of children who stammer.

Hindi picture book; Hindi text without pictures,

English Picture book, English text without pictures

Hindi Animation Video, Podcast

Seven stories for children

Seven stories for Children

Meant for children, these fun stories share some common sense ideas, which if understood, can help a child in recovery. (English, Hindi)

Samwad a Newsletter

Samwad Magazine

Samwad means communication in Hindi. This bilingual magazine was brought out with great joy and care by Harish and Amit, between 2011 and 2015. It showcased events and sentiments from various SHGs, with write ups from our overseas friends too. Here are all the issues as pdf files:

Volume 1 – Aug, 2010
Volume 2 – Nov, 2010
Volume 3 – Jan, 2011
Volume 4 – May, 2011
Volume 5 – Aug, 2011
Volume 6 – Oct, 2011
Volume 7 – Dec, 2011
Volume 8 – Apr, 2012
Volume 9 – Aug, 2012
Volume 10 – Nov, 2012
Volume 11 – Jan, 2013
Volume 12 – May, 2013
Volume 13 – Oct, 2013

Volume 14 – Sep. 2018

Videos

We have made many videos, to put our stammering out into the public: so that it becomes a common place issue which we can easily talk about. TISA has a official youtube channel.

Some old videos are on this channel (satksri).
Some more on this channel (Satyendra Srivastava). You will have to browse and see. Not all deal with stammering. Soon we will be providing you with specific playlists.

Hindi Beginner Videos

Series of Hindi videos explaining various concepts and tools in a simple way; Good resource for beginners.

Haklao, Magar pyar se (2 videos; total about 78 minutes)

Early Hindi Interview

Face the Fear Videos

Series of videos explaining various concepts and tools in a simple way; Good resource for beginners.
Goa NC: Women go on stage and do a role play

Communication Workshops

Three day Communication workshops give participants a close view of what acceptance and self help mean in practice. These have been very popular and one very tangible contribution of TISA to society.
Role plays on the last day of the workshop
Skit in Bhopal
First Workshop Testimony

Just a bad habit?

Resources for Special Groups

Parents & Teachers

Parents and Teachers can play a significant role. Lot of this role is – accepting the child as s/he is and demonstrating it through behaviour all the time. Speak slowly yourself, the way you want child to. Ask less questions and wait for her to finish.

Employers

Employers and colleagues at work spend one third of their day with us, week after week. They often wonder about our speech but rarely ask questions. It is time that they did and became more proactive in engaging with us.

Women

Women are waking up to their potential both as an individual and as half of the humanity. Many realise that just aping the men is not real empowerment. Women are discovering their own approaches to social issues and their niche: social causes where their perspective brings in an element of fuzzy logic and inclusiveness. Click above and learn from TISA women wing.

Therapist

We believe that most therapists have good intentions but they may not have easy access to evidence(You cant follow up a client who drops out after a few sessions). We can not “teach” them anything but are happy to share some resources with them in the spirit of Glasnost! Please click above and browse the resources. Get back if you have any question.

External Resources

Stuttering Homepage

Dr Judith Kuster is a professor of Communication Sciences at Minnesota. She has done an invaluable service by maintaining this home page (“Mother of all resources”). She has actively encouraged many pws all around the world to open up, write and share- on their way to recovery. The first IPWS to be inspired by her is Prakhar Sachan (link to his 2006 ISAD paper).

ruth

Speech is a River – a good book

More gifts from Ruth Mead

harrison

Harrison has truly redefined our understanding of stammering (check his “hexagon”).. (learn more about him)

Hunter Adair- My silent pause

Biographies

My Silent Pause ( Hunter Adair ) An interesting biography of a scotsman, who worked through his own difficulties and perfected his own technique – a pause and then start again when the audience looks at you.. Perhaps the first documentation of successful self help attempt.

My Experiments In Conquering Stuttering and Stammering  Can a stammerer fly a plane? Biography of a pws who became a fighter pilot.

What about your biography? Write and share here.

malcolm

Self-Therapy for Stutterer by Malcom Fraser is a very useful and old book. Worth a read! Thank you, Stuttering Foundation!

Stammering in Movies

Zuban – a great Hindi film: here is a clip,

Unspeakable is a good documentary. The maker, John Paskievich made it as a part of his recovery project. Here is a clip.

King’s Speech is a masterpiece. Watch the full movie here for free.

Front of The Class is about Tourrette Syndrome which shares many features (and a gene, I guess) with stammering. Inspirational! Full movie at Youtube!

Rocket Science has lot of dark humor but comes pretty close to portraying what we go through in our growing up years: Intense American Drama! But also full of deep insights as to how relationships evolve, how our self-concept pushes thru many disappointments and set backs (clip).

Media Resources

Please feel free to adapt these resources for your need and context.