A 14 year old who stutters on Long Island-great strides towards fluency

I would like to share with you a great story of a wonderful 14 year old boy I work with. He gave me permission to share this. I don't want to use his real name so I will call him Dan. Dan started coming to therapy in Feb of 2009. He started stuttering at age 7 (later in life than most). His confidence was down, his eye contact not great and hesistant to talk. His stuttering was classified as moderate and he had many fears about talking in general. Dan is a very easy going, bright, handsome and athletic young man who was obvioulsy affected greatly by his stuttering. We started practicing breathing, connecting words and easy onsets. We also developed a hierarchy of feared situations. Dan did his homework daily, even though he was heavily involved in sports. He was very motivated and I am pleased to hear a high level of fluency with him. More importantly, I have seen a total transformation of confidence. Dan now answers phones, orders for himself, and talks freely with friends and family. He looks both myself and family straight in the eye when talking. We are still working on public speaking situations, which I explained are hard for everyone. He will get there. He has attended support and practice groups and talks openly about stuttering. Dan is a great role model and I am proud of him for all his hard work.