Stuttering is Beautiful 2 Erasmus Project

Project Title

Stuttering is Beautiful 2

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Disabilities – special needs; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

Stuttering is a communication disorder that interferes with a person’s ability to speak fluently. From the population about 1% of people stutter. This is about 900.000 young people who stutter (YPWS) between ages 16 and 30 in the EU, thus forming quite a big group of people. Stuttering can have a big negative impact on a person and many young people who stutter often face social exclusion. Stuttering can affect participation and happiness at school, relationships with teachers and classmates, and academic potential and achievement. Many YPWS are alone with their problem and perceive their self communication competence low and are afraid of social situations.

Italian, Icelandic, Dutch and Estonian stuttering associations want young people who stutter to have more information about stuttering, have information how to deal with stuttering and have a support network around them in order to make a change. Just information in the form of self-help books, brochures and Youtube videos is not enough, but a comprehensive strategy, that takes into account all the steps of the communication process, is far more effective. What usually happens is that when YPWS goes to speech therapy and learns new speech skills, they have to speak in a different way. As it is still a learning process and it is very difficult to transfer new speech skills to everyday life. They need to have a clear understanding of what they want to change, how it is the best way to do it and they need a support network to do it. With the new speech skills learned, at the beginning YPWS usually starts to stutter even more. They have to speak at a slower rate than previously. When this young person goes to school, youth center, or speaks to friends, it is extremely difficult for YPWS to start using new learned speech skills. Another case might be that YPWS just wants to speak the way he/she speaks naturally. This can be a very scary situation for YPWS, thus the environment has to be supportive. This is when our online tool (O1) is needed.

The objective of this project is to create an easy to use online tool (O1) for YPWS that will provide online support, making it possible to find support from all over the world, interacting with different countries. It will be reachable from anyone anywhere (moreover young people who stutter). Since it will be translated into different languages, the language won’t be a barrier. It will contain updated evidence based information about stuttering. Finally, it will be individualized – every YPWS will be able to create his/her own space on a folder/discussion in our online tool forum and see his/her path on his/her process of change occurring during the use of the online tool itself.

Our target group are YPWS (age 16-30), and other young people who communicate with YPWS.
The O1 to be created will be situated in stamily.org internet page. Stamily (name comes from stuttering and family) includes a variety of YPWS from different countries, who support each other and share their stories. The online tool takes into account following steps of communication process:
* General information about stuttering and speech therapy
* Information about (stuttering related) attitudes and how to change them
* Information how to set (stuttering related) goals
* Information how to make a (stuttering related) plan (create long and short term plan that contains hierarchy)
* Behavior and feedback – with the online tool YPWS can monitor the process and make changes to the plan

With the another Erasmus+ project we are creating an online tool for youth workers to help young people who stutter. In the future these online tools will work together. In this way YPWS will have information about stuttering, they know how to make a change and they get support from youth workers. Youth workers also have information about stuttering, have information how to create a safe environment for YPWS, how to establish contact and how to support the change. Different parties can share their success stories with each other and thus raise each other motivation to change.

In the long term YPWS will have better relations, better self-esteem, they are bullied less, they have better memories of social situations and more positive outlook of life. This project will also have an impact for the society as a whole as YPWS with better self-esteem are socially more inclusive and have better opportunities for employability.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 101730 Eur

Project Coordinator

EESTI KOGELEJATE ÜHING MTÜ & Country: EE

Project Partners

• Associazione Italiana Balbuzie e Comunicazione ONLUS
• Demosthenes
• Málbjörg