Innovative camp for children who stammer held for first time at UL

This July saw 27 children from across the region with speech and language difficulties participate in a unique fun-filled and educational camp at University of Limerick designed for children who stammer.

Camp Dream Speak Live is a week-long, evidence-based programme for children and adolescents who stammer. The focus of the camp is to empower children to stammer openly, reducing the impact of stuttering on the child’s life while also increasing their self-confidence and resilience.

The camp was run as a partnership between UL’s School of Allied Health and the HSE Speech and Language Therapy primary care services in Limerick, North Tipperary and Clare.

It was facilitated by speech and language therapists from the HSE primary care services and UL’s School of Allied Health as well as some second-year student volunteers from the university’s MSc Speech and Language Therapy programme.

The camp provided a wide range of activities including drumming, circus skills, Lego building, dancing, improvisation, music generation and mindfulness. There was also a visit from the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind (IGDB). The children met Marcel, an ambassador dog for the IGDB, and learned about what it takes for a dog to become a guide dog.

The camp visited the Equine Centred Services in Newmarket on Fergus, Co Clare to engage in equine-assisted learning. Here the children enjoyed interacting with the horses in the arena where they could take turns brushing, rubbing, and leading the horses.

Throughout the week there were visits from what the programme calls ‘Everyday Leaders’, who are adults who stammer. One of these guests included Watford Football Club footballer Ken Suma, who spoke with the children about his story of growing up with a stammer.

Limerick Senior Hurling Manager, John Kiely, paid a special visit to the camp where the children were excited to get the opportunity to ask him some questions about his managing role and to get some jerseys and hurleys signed.

Camp Dream Speak Live was founded in 2014 by Courtney Byrd at the Arthur M. Blank Centre for Stuttering Education and Research at the University of Texas in Austin. In 2023, Marie Nicholas, Senior Speech and Language Therapist working in the HSE, attended the camp at the University of Texas. She then brought her learning home and set about running the camp for the first time in Limerick this year.

“Camp Dream Speak Live provides children with the unique opportunity to meet others who stammer and to find comfort, strength and confidence within that supportive community. It was a privilege to observe the children growing in communication, confidence, self-acceptance and self-belief throughout the week. The camp was such an outstanding success this year that we hope to make it available every summer for children who stammer from across the region,” she commented.

Marie was further supported in setting up and running the camp in UL by HSE Speech and Language Therapists, Mary O’Dwyer, who has been running Camp Dream Speak Live in Tralee, Co Kerry for a number of years and Emer Ní Mhaoileoin who attended the Tralee camp in 2023 to observe how the camp is run in an Irish context.

Leanne Bridgeman, Senior Speech and Language Therapist at University of Limerick said: “The children who attended the camp learned so much throughout the week about themselves and about stammering but most importantly they learned that what they have to say is important and that they should never let stammering stop them from pursuing their dreams or living their lives to the fullest.”

Speaking about the impact of the camp on his son, Páidí, Martin Downes said: “I can’t speak highly enough about the week my son has just put down at Camp Dream Speak Live at UL. He’s an introvert and he’s quite shy. When I was bringing him in on Monday morning he was so caught up in himself and we really didn’t know what way it would go, but the camp has turned him inside out I actually cannot thank this week enough for the joy my son has felt and confidence it has brought to him.”

The camp culminated with a parade across UL’s living bridge, where the children displayed the posters and banners, they had made during the camp to educate others on what they wished people knew about stammering.