International Stuttering Awareness Day

The InternationalStuttering Awareness Day tends to become one of the PR highlights for many stuttering associations. Here Antero Tiilikka reports on what happened in Finland last year.

In 1998 and 1999 we publicised ISAD in the media (TV, radio, newspapers and periodicals) firstly an announcement two weeks before the ISAD, and then one the week before. Other information shots including four A-4 pages on what stuttering is, the child who stutters, stuttering therapy and how school teachers should react to a stuttering pupil. All were sent by fax and e-mail. This arrangement worked quite well during the previous two years. But for last year, when especially children stuttering was in the headlines, we needed something more, so we included our first video on the stuttering child.

The first ideas for this video came two years ago when we had a meeting with three leading speech threrapists in Finland. They stressed the need for a special video about stuttering in children. This group of speech therapists (Sinikka Hannus, Tuula Lukkarinen and Karin Routamo-Jaatela) then started to make initial plans for the video. At a meeting in the garden of my house in Summer 1999 the idea became a reality, we decided to make a funding application to the Slotts Machine Association in Finland for about 56.000 FIM.

Our application was accepted in February 2000, and after that we started the real work. At first the speech therapists went through the manuscript many times together with the video professionals (Mr. and Mrs. Hannu and Aira Jumppainen). After this period, the first shots for the video started in May 2000 and were finished in late summer.

Then the final work. The editing work was carried out by Mr. Hannu Jumppainen in cooperation with the speech therapists.

As this work seemed to flow to schedule we decided that the first show of this video could be the headline of our ISAD activities that year.

The media was firstly informed about our new video by fax and e-mail. For the preliminary showing we hired a beautiful room in our capital Helsinki, and invited all people concerned, media and others, including the adult and child actors (and their parents). One newspaper showed up, all the others present were the actors. Nevertheless, we received in discussion very important ideas on how to edit the final version of the video, which will be marketed in Finland by the Publishing Company of the Speech Therapists Association. In addition, we will sell the video at a special price to members of our Association.

What else happened before ISAD? In the middle of September we contaced TV 1 in Finland, explained to them that our video will be ready soon. They were interested and sent a team to our editing session and produced a good story about stuttering and our video. They were asked to broadcast it close to ISAD in October, but it was on the air already at the end of September - almost eight minutes as a documentary program after the prime time evening news. The audience: about 500.000 people.

A few weeks before the ISAD we also contacted the Finnish national TV (YLE), and proposed to include stuttering in their contact-program around October 22 - and they did. I went to the studio on October 19 and I had to explain what stuttering is, what the origin is and what therapies are available. Then I had to answer many telephone calls from the listeners. All that took about 30 minutes. Listeners: about 200-300.000 in South Finland.

In total we got ten minutes at TV prime time - without any costs!

I received a telephone call from another TV channel requesting information and video material for their evening news. That was settled very soon, some tapes were delivered to the studio, and they sent a team to interview one of the script writers of the video. In total we got some 10 minutes at TV prime time, and practically without any costs.

The radio stations behaved a little bit differently. Only YLE reacted well before ISAD. The other stations woke up only one day before and telephoned me, asking for interviews, six in total.

In future we need some additional news in conjunction with ISAD. It is frustrating for the media to get the same news piece every year.

On October 22 we had a pleasent surprise: ISAD was announced for about 30 seconds in the main news at noon by the main news agency, STT, and this was broadcasted to all the YLE main radio stations in Finland.

The press also reacted positively. The biggest daily newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat, for the first time acknowledged ISAD. The story published was a short one on the last page of the Sunday edition, but anyway, we were there !

I am quite convinced that in future we need some additional national and regional news in conjunction with ISAD. It is very frustrating for the media to get the same news piece every year stating that ISAD is coming!

This additional news could be regional to include some new achievements in stuttering, therapy, videos, etc. or national interviews of famous ministers, politicans, fund administrators. It could also provide details of state/communical resources for presenting social activities including stuttering therapy, research on stuttering, or other things to do with stuttering which could be of common interest. Face to face interviews or discussions in radio or TV would be helpful (this would require courage from the stutterers involved, though! )