Walking
down the halls of CRLS next to junior Claude Nherrison, makes one feel
that they are in the presence of a celebrity! “Hi Claude,” the students
shout. “You look great! You don’t have a walker!” Claude’s contagious
proud smile immediately appears on his face as he directly looks at the
students and sincerely in his deep voice replies, “Thank you, how are
you?” Claude immediately begins to laugh as he watches looks of surprise
and excitement appear on the students’ faces.
Claude enrolled at CRLS during November of 2010. When Claude arrived
at CRLS, he was using a walker as a result of a motor-vehicle accident
he was involved in as a pedestrian in 2009. Separate from physical
injuries resulting from the accident, Claude also presented with a
severe stutter. As a result of this stutter, Claude primarily
communicated using the words, “yes,” “no,” and “good”.
The staff at CRLS was committed to helping Claude with his fluency
difficulties, while Claude’s family was committed to helping him walk
independently. Claude was determined to make improvements in both areas.
This summer, Claude independently attended physical therapy to help
with the walking. In addition, he attended the New England Fluency
Therapy program, run by Adriana DiGrande, MS, CCC-SLP, BRS-FD. The New
England Fluency Therapy program is a three week, 7 hours a day intensive
integrated fluency therapy program. The program integrates both
stuttering modification and fluency shaping strategies in order to
address the complex nature of the stuttering and human behavior. At the
end of the three weeks, Claude strutted to the podium without his walker
in order to give a speech about the techniques he learned at the
program and his thoughts about stuttering. Claude gave a two minute
speech without one dysfluency to a room full of tearful teachers,
friends and parents. When Claude began the New England Fluency Program,
he stuttered on 49% of his spoken words. When he ended the program, he
only stuttered on 3% of his spoken words.
With the help of the teachers at CRLS and his family, Claude
continues to work on using the techniques learned at The New England
Fluency Program daily to maintain this level of success. Claude’s
English teacher, had tears in her eyes when asked to explain the changes
she has seen in Claude. “Claude is the epitome of why the education at
CRLS is second to none. The collaboration of special educators, general
educators, related service providers, and all staff members within this
high school have one common goal. This goal is to help all students.
Claude is the culmination of this work. I smile when I see him and I am
usually on the verge of tears when he participates in a verbal share. He
is a living miracle!”
When asked, “How has your life changed?” Claude immediately responds
without hesitation, “I think this program changed my life because I know
how to not stutter anymore. In classes, I ask questions and I answer
questions. With my friends, I talk to them. When I stuttered, I did not
talk in class or with friends. Now, I can speak. I feel happy because I
do not use the walker anymore and now I can talk without stuttering. I
like to talk, but I couldn’t before. I feel happy that people are happy
to see me talk and walk.”