Our hero was four years old and his parents started to notice that his speech development wasn't coming along as normal as it should. I was lucky that they realized it somewhat early because I got tested and eventually diagnosed with "blocking form" of stuttering. This is much less common that the popular "stammering" (T-T-T-Today Junior) so it was initially unclear if I was stuttering or had some other, more common speech deficit.
Speech difficulties are very common in young children and the lucky ones either grow out of it or have successful speech therapies and overcome their stammer of lisp or trouble saying "R" or a thousand other things. It has not been as easy for me and I've been in various forms of speech therapy, off and on for 23 years. Damn, that seems like a long time, but I didn't go for several years in my teenage years so I guess its not that bad.
I actually remember my first speech lesson with my first speech therapist, Mrs Campbell. I think it might be my earliest memory. Not because it was super traumatic or memorable for a revelation reason but I had a terrible ear infection and just remember crying loudly during the initial interview and being very unhappy. I had no idea that I stuttered or was any different than the other kids. My neighborhood friends didn't bring it up and didn't care.
I was involved in some pretty intense speech therapy for about 10 years and was doing quite well. I was heavily involved in the drama club at school and had fairly large roles in several plays and improv troops. My mom said I was the cutest little nazi boy she'd ever seen (Ralf from "Sound of Music") I ran for Student Council several times and even gave a candidacy speech in front of the whole grade school and only struggled on one word: "Responsible" Probably because it was a lie, I'm not responsible!
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