Stuttering Success Stories
Real stories from real people that have experienced recovery from conditions involving stuttering.
Names and locations may have been changed for the protection of clients.
"To Talk the Talk
At Last"
The Miraculous Recovery of a Boy-Turned-Man
My son Shlomo’s stutter came out of the blue at age five, with no apparent explanation or trigger. The emotional impact was deep, and not only on him. I felt under constant scrutiny by family and friends. There was always the unspoken (and often spoken) question: What are you doing to help your child? We tried multiple therapies, to no avail. After five years, we stopped pushing it.
This year, as Shlomo’s bar mitzvah approached, he dreamed of giving a speech like all his friends. As the day drew closer, he grew increasingly frustrated. He’d been stuttering for eight years, but this year, it was worse than ever. He found it impossible to say words, let alone sentences, without getting completely stuck.
One day, he broke down. “Abba, help me! I’m ready. Take me to therapy.”
This was a breakthrough, as he’d resisted therapy for many years. We reached out to RME Educational Services and they referred us to Yitzchok Weiss. I contacted Yitzchok. He told me, “I don’t have any credentials. This isn’t medically proven. It’s simply a method I developed as I navigated my own stuttering struggle.” He sent me references and told me to do research. The stories I heard blew me away.
The bar mitzvah drew closer. Yitzchok understood the urgency and gave us an appointment right away. He said one session of several hours would be enough, which seemed fantastical to me. Would it work? It was also expensive—but if there was a slight chance my child would talk, that would be priceless.
The day of our appointment arrived. I was astounded as I watched how quickly he connected with my child. Forty-five minutes into the session, I saw Yitzchok had identified the core of the issue. They worked for a few hours, took a break, and then continued. Yitzchok read with him, spoke with him, and built his confidence.
When he finished coaching, he made small talk with Shlomo. About three minutes into the talk, I thought, Am I dreaming? He’s not stuttering. I pinched myself. Then I broke down and walked out of the room. It was a miracle. Eight years of shame and struggle melted away. They spoke for another hour. It was a fluent conversation.
The next morning, we went to him again to practice for the bar mitzvah. We walked to shul and stood by the bima for an hour. He encouraged Shlomo, who then leined clearly and confidently. It was unbelievable.
“You changed my life,” Shlomo told him emotionally.
I didn’t tell my parents before the bar mitzvah about our success story with Shlomo’s stutter. I was afraid the pressure would make him stumble. But when the day arrived, he spoke before the crowd—fluently, powerfully, confidently. My parents had been anxious about his speech, ready for some drama and embarrassment. They were shocked.
Since that session, Shlomo is a changed person. He is a natural leader, but his stutter forced him to be an introvert. His inner spark was dimmed. But now, he’s calmer, happier, and shares his wit. He participates in school and has developed various hobbies. He has a new tool in his arsenal with which to achieve his dreams.
Yitzchok checks in daily with a 30-60 second phone call, maintaining the momentum and providing ongoing support.
Yitzchok has given my son the gift of communication, and with it, a new lease on life.
"A British Success Story"
Stuttering Curbed!
"When I read about Mr. Yitzchok Weiss and his success with stutterers, I was sold on the idea of taking our son to America. My husband was less sure. For one thing, it was a costly undertaking; for another, we had already taken him to so many
specialists and therapists with no results. At that point, we had basically given up."
Our son was 10 years old and could barely talk. Just getting each syllable out of his mouth required tremendous effort and his words were wholly incoherent. He could not utter a single word with clarity except for “Mommy.” We had been to therapists all over England and had stopped going to therapy six months before because we were so disenchanted with the process. There were simply no new developments and we had despaired of finding the right help. We knew our kid was “normal,” but would he ever get past his speech impediment?
I came across Mr. Yitzchok Weiss’s interview in Hamodia’s Inyan magazine and contacted him that very day. To me it was a no-brainer. If I could “have” my child, I wanted to try. Right now, it was too painful to communicate, too painful to watch him suffer through the intense stammering. His intensity whenever he tried to speak to me was so earnest. As his mother, I just wanted to make it all better. Though we couldn’t leave our little ones, we had a family simchah in Lakewood Purim time anyway. We booked
tickets for the entire family and eagerly looked forward to seeing whether Mr. Weiss would be our shaliach. We were on one of the last flights out of England before covid reared its ugly head.
Imagine being on a bus from Lakewood to Brooklyn at 7:15 a.m. on Shushan Purim morning with a sleepy 10-year old...Despite the difficult timing, we were eager to start. We never imagined that we would return that very night with a child who could communicate. But that is exactly what happened!
After two hours of working with my son and going through various sounds of the alef-beis, it became apparent to Mr. Weiss that he had a problem with certain sounds (like the shin) that he simply could not enunciate at all. At that point, Mr. Weiss told us to break for lunch, as the session was very intense. We left to air out and get some pizza just as Boro Park was starting to wake up from the Purim aftermath. We returned refreshed and continued the work. I sat and watched as my son and Mr. Weiss worked through various sounds together. Slowly it started working, and my son started saying all the sounds of the alef-beis that he could
not master earlier. After another two hours of intense exercises, we were finally done with the in-person sessions. It was like something had clicked in my son’s brain! Mr. Weiss seemed to have reprogrammed him. Suddenly, words and thoughts and feelings were erupting that had previously been pent up inside of him. He talked and talked, sometimes yelling from the newness of it all, eager to say the things he had always kept bottled up. I had my son! My husband could finally talk and learn with him. We were overjoyed.
My son continued to call Mr. Weiss daily for the next two weeks as per his protocol and would call him to ask questions related to speech or simply to tell him about his day. By then, we had traveled to be at my sister-in-law’s house for Pesach. As luck would have it, we were quarantined there for 10 weeks due to COVID-19, which did cause some regression in my son’s progress. It was a lot for any child but, baruch Hashem, as soon as we were able to fly back home, he bounced back.
I wish the same life-altering brachah and positive change to every child out there who stutters and to the parents of those children as well! What I find particularly unbelievable is that my son, who is by nature shy and reticent, goes straight to the phone to call Mr. Weiss often, saying, “I must call and tell Mr. Weiss what happened!”
It’s like he found his lost-long self in the deep recesses of his own mind — a self who can easily talk. Or maybe it is because he found a long-lost friend in Mr. Weiss. Either way, we now have a calm, even-keeled son who can finally talk — clearly, proudly, albeit a bit slowly — but without a trace of a stammer or stutter.