Thirteen year old Brayden Harrington’s speech at the Democratic National Convention Thursday evening left an indelible mark in history. Not just for the way it elevated Joe Biden in the eyes of the nation, but for the way it elevated stutterers around the world.
Brayden Harrington had met Biden, at a February campaign event, where Biden showed Brayden how he makes public speaking easier. “Without Joe Biden, I would not be talking to you today. About a few months ago, I met him in New Hampshire. He told me we were members of the same club. We stutter,” Harrington said.
The speech itself was bold and courageous beyond imagination — for a young boy to speak from the heart about his own struggles with a speech disorder that haunts many children like him and to do it in front of an audience of millions, knowing very well that he spoke not just for himself but for millions of fellow “club members”.
As expected, the speech reverberated around the world and touched the hearts of millions who saw and heard it. It brought forth a wave of applause, thank you notes and thousands of folks who want to share their own stories about life as a stutterer. It brought into focus a problem that afflicts millions of children and helped improved our understanding about it. It also highlighted the contrast between Biden and trump, between liberals and conservatives, between those who help vs those who mock.
The first meeting between Brayden and Joe Biden, caught on tape -
Here is a short video of the story behind the speech -
Brayden must be riding sky high, but guess what is on his mind? He wants to help others like him, he wants to share the gift he got from Joe Biden with his fellow beings! Isn’t that what humanity is all about? This kid will go places, don’t you think?
As we all know, this is not the first time Joe Biden has offered a hand to help others in their time of need. He has been sharing his wisdom and love with children and adults for decades. It’s what comes to him naturally. He connects with people and offers unconditional love. That is what being a Liberal is all about. Here is another notable example from 26 years ago -
About Stuttering
From www.nidcd.nih.gov/… -
- Stuttering affects approximately 3 million Americans.
- It occurs most often in children between the ages of 2 and 6 as they are developing their language skills.
- Approximately 5 to 10 percent of all children will stutter for some period in their life, lasting from a few weeks to several years.
- Boys are 2 to 3 times as likely to stutter as girls and as they get older this gender difference increases; the number of boys who continue to stutter is three to four times larger than the number of girls.
- Most children outgrow stuttering. Approximately 75% of children recover from stuttering. For the remaining 25% who continue to stutter, stuttering can persist as a lifelong communication disorder.
From www.cnn.com/… -
The cause of stuttering is thought to be a combination of neurological, psychological and genetic factors. Sixty percent of those who stutter also have a family member who stutters, studies have found. But it was not until 2005 that scientists discovered why. Today we know that mutations in four genes contribute to about 20% of all cases of stuttering, and science is searching for more.
Those genes affect a part of the brain that controls "intracellular trafficking" — a relatively new understanding of how certain molecules inside a cell direct traffic along various neural pathways. These genes are also being studied in connection with Parkinson's, Huntington's and even Alzheimer's disease.
Genes can't explain all cases of stuttering, however. There could be physical issues that contribute, such as speech sensory and motor coordination, and of course having a stroke, traumatic brain injury or other brain disorders.
The Stuttering Foundation is a great resource to learn about stuttering and about how to overcome it.
- Demosthenes, Charles Darwin, Lewis Carroll, John Updike and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
- Winston Churchill, King George VI, Alan Turing
- Tiger Woods, Herschel Walker, Shaquille O'Neal and Greg Louganis.
- Jimmy Stewart, Marilyn Monroe, Anthony Quinn, Nicole Kidman, Emily Blunt, Samuel L. Jackson and James Earl Jones.
- Marc Anthony, Mel Tillis, B.B. King, Ed Sheeran and Elvis Presley.
A few notes of thanks from stutterers -
Dr. Wen wrote -
Watching Brayden is a reminder of how our greatest source of shame can also be our greatest source of strength. Learning about his interaction with Biden, who has spoken openly about his own struggle with stuttering, shows what happens when our vulnerability is met with compassion and kindness. Regardless of our politics, I think we can all be inspired to show others that they belong, that they are worthy and that every voice matters.
For Brayden to deliver a speech of this magnitude he had to navigate two gulfs: the physical gulf within himself and the gulf between himself and an anonymous public, whose reaction to communication snafus is unpredictable and not always patient or friendly.
There’s actually a third gulf, which may be the hardest to confront, between the image one wants to preserve of oneself as capable and unimpeded and the reality of one’s experience in the world. It was here that Biden laid down a bridge, sharing with his young friend how he learned to deal with his problem by reading from Yeats’ poetry aloud and by marking up his speeches in such a way as to ease his journey through them.
Film: My Beautiful Stutter
There is an upcoming movie about stuttering, produced by Paul Rudd & George Springer, which has been making the film festival circuit.
Synopsis: “My Beautiful Stutter follows five kids who stutter, ages 9 to 18, from all over the United States and all walks of life, who, after experiencing a lifetime of bullying and stigmatization, meet other children who stutter at an interactive arts-based program, The Stuttering Association for the Young, based in New York City. Their journey to SAY find some close to suicide, others withdrawn and fearful, exhausted and defeated from failed fluency training, societal pressures to not stutter or the decision to remain silent. Over the course of a year we witness first hand the incredible transformation that happens when these young people of wildly different backgrounds experience for the first time the revolutionary idea at the heart of SAY: that it's okay to stutter.”
The Liberal vs the Conservative mind
Are there any innate differences between Liberals and Conservatives, that help explain some of differences in attitudes and behaviors we observe between the two groups? As summarized in www.businessinsider.com/…, there are psychological and neurological differences between Liberals and Conservative —
- Decades of research have shown that people get more conservative when they feel threatened and afraid.
- Brain scans show that people who self-identify as conservative have larger and more active right amygdalas, an area of the brain that's associated with expressing and processing fear.
- Groundbreaking research that Yale psychologists published in 2017 revealed that helping people imagine they're completely safe from harm can make them (temporarily) hold more liberal views on social issues.
- Conservatives tend to display more ordered thinking patterns, whereas liberals have more "aha" moments.
- Holding conservative views seems to make people more resistant to change and help them explain inequality.
- Studies from the 1980s showed that conservatives preferred more simple paintings, familiar music, and unambiguous texts and poems, while liberals enjoyed more cubist and abstract art.
- A 1980 study of US high school students found that conservative students at that time were more likely to describe themselves as "responsible," "organized," "successful," and "ambitious," while liberal students might describe themselves as "loving," "tender," or "mellow."
- New research shows that conservatives tend to express compassion to smaller social circles than liberals.
Epilogue
Please share this info. and your insights with others, so that we can all learn from Brayden and Joe Biden and show the world that America is lot better than what we have seen over the past 4 years under trump. Like Brayden and his compatriots, we too shall overcome this dark cloud that has engulfed our nation and restore America to its greatness, a greatness that comes from We the People and our unbounded capacity for hope, love, and justice.
Check out joebiden.com/… and en.wikipedia.org/… to get better armed with the truth about Joe’s life and his lifetime of service.
Also check out the “100 days of Loving Joe Biden” series of diaries by GoodNewsRoundup at www.dailykos.com/...
