Spit It Out Silence
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Spit It Out Silence
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Stuttering, substance abuse, and the journey of self-acceptance
My social work students and I found Spit It Out to be both moving and enlightening. The film presents the issue of stuttering in a sensitive systems dynamic that broadened the students' understanding of this complex issue.
Professor of Social Work, New York University
Spit It Out is a powerful and poignant revelatory journey into one person's lifelong challenges with stuttering. The film is a significant educating tool because it simultaneously illustrates the highly personal and interpersonal issues associated with stuttering, while delving into stuttering's important scientific and clinical aspects as well. Spit It Out is a perfect film for speech and language pathology students and clinicians as well as for individuals who stutter along with their spouses and families.
PhD, CCC-SLP, Speech/Language Pathologist & Fluency Specialist, Assistant Professor, Minot State University, North Dakota
Spit It Out is a powerful documentary. I strongly recommend the viewing of this film by stutterers, significant others of stutterers and anyone else interested in the complex challenge of living with stuttering.
Professor Emeritus Eastern Washington University
It seems Hollywood loves to poke fun at people who stutter. But Jeff Shames isn't laughing—he's fighting back. The 47-year-old stutterer is speaking out loud and clear with a film of his own, a documentary called Spit It Out. Shames' new film is at times lighthearted, but it casts a bright spotlight on what life can be like for adults who stutter.
Spit It Out is a personal journey, both intimate and universal, into the ways that a family copes with someone who is different. Its very rawness is its power.
I loved every minute of it. Spit It Out is the most real and honest documentary film I have ever seen.
Perhaps it's a good thing to witness someone else's setbacks and their valiant attempts to overcome them. To see another person who stutters in those situations can be instructive, ennobling, embarrassing or cathartic. I guess what I'm trying to say is that people should get hold of the video and watch it. It's not light entertainment. They might see something of themselves on screen and gain insights from it.
Air Flow, the New Zealand quarterly magazine for people who stutter
Speaking out for stutterers, it's not always easy. Now, Jeffrey Shames is ready. Jeffrey Shames always went for the silent roles. As a child, he'd pass up a lobster dinner - his favorite - because words beginning with "l" were hard for him to say. It didn't stop there. Words beginning with vowels came to an abrupt halt in his mouth. No matter how hard he tried, words never flowed smoothly for Shames. Now, at 47, this lifelong stutterer is taking on a speaking role - as a mentor to a younger generation of stutterers. He's featured in a very personal documentary, Spit It Out, and in the opening scene he is seen sitting on a beach, his mouth filled with stones - one of the first known "therapies" on record for stuttering. Shames was trying to recapture the moments when the ancient Greek orator Demosthenes would stand at the ocean with stones in his mouth to cure his stuttering. "It's dramatic for the film," he said. "But it doesn't work."In his childhood, circa 1960s, the world did not embrace those with a stammer. Shames recounts his father's shame and opposition to therapy for his son. His mother, who was more sympathetic but unwilling to talk openly about her child's trouble spitting out words, did not reveal that she, too, had a childhood stutter until Shames began interviewing her for the film. "A large part of a stutterer's life is what they do to not stutter," said Shames, who works for a nonprofit housing agency in Manhattan. He describes the film, which he wrote and produced, as a journey to self-acceptance. Even as he was making it, he joined a theater group for people who stutter - an experience that he said gave him a shot of confidence he'd never felt before.There are about 3 million people in the United States who stutter. The problem often begins in childhood. More than half stop stuttering in adolescence or later, but scientists have yet to understand why. Shames' mother stopped stuttering when she left for college and was hoping her son would have the same experience. Scientists have yet to nail down the causes of stuttering. One who devotes a sizable part of his research to the subject is a doctor who has spent much of his life stuttering. The work of Dr. Gerald Maguire, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California at Irvine, has led to some of the first medications that reduce the frequency of a person's stutter. The way these drugs work has, in turn, identified a basic brain pathology that may give rise to stuttering. "Stuttering is related to an abnormality in the timing and the initiation of speech," Maguire said in an interview. Brain scans of stutterers show an abnormality in the region known as the striatum, which regulates timing. The striatum loops together activity in the region where words are formed with the region that is active when words are spoken. Maguire said the striatum is far less active in stutterers. The striatum is rich with the brain chemical dopamine, and Maguire found dopamine levels in the striatum of stutterers are 50 to 200 percent higher than normal. He has been testing olanzapine, a schizophrenia drug that works to block dopamine, and has been using it himself for seven years. He credits the medicine for his near-fluid speech; during a telephone interview, his stutter is barely noticeable. The drug and other anti-psychotic medicines have not been approved for stuttering, however, and are not recommended for children, he added.For Shames, a stuttering life has become worth living. By accepting his stutter, he is more comfortable with himself, he said. He does not take a medication and, like most stutterers, has developed a number of secondary problems in an attempt to deal with his stutter: He closes his eyes, swallows and tries to use "ummm" so words beginning with vowels flow off the "ummm." His neck and mouth tense up, and he tries to speak very quickly to get in as many words as possible before the next speech block. Some people move their heads, some kick their heels, and others hold their breath before attempting a problematic word. There are a variety of speech therapies, and some stutterers wind up trying many of them. Shames spent much of his adult life learning these anti-stuttering techniques but said he hasn't relied on them in about a decade. Each stutterer has a singular way of speaking. Shames pauses before speaking a tricky word. He said most stutterers have problems with hard consonants like b, m and n. Some people memorize substitute words. "People become a walking thesaurus," Shames said.Some stutterers are also turning to devices that promise help. Jeffrey J. Felixbrod is a clinical psychologist from Manhasset who wears a miniature electronic device in his ear that he says controls his stuttering. He has been promoting and selling the device, called a Fluency Master, for several years. When Felixbrod was a child, the prominent theory was that stuttering was a learned, though abnormal, speaking pattern. He supports the theory that stuttering is caused by a problem in the muscle movements that are called upon to generate speech. The muscles, he said, are overstepping their boundaries, triggering tension and making the mouth move incorrectly. Some research has shown that the speech muscles of stutterers do not perform the correct sequence of movements necessary to produce fluent speech. Felixbrod said a tiny microphone in the Fluency Master detects the signal from the vocal cords, then transmits it to circuitry housed in a tiny hearing aid case worn behind the ear. The device amplifies the signal. The brain uses the enhanced signal to guide speech muscle movements. He said he spent more than 40 years stuttering and almost lost his job a few times because his supervisors thought patients wouldn't be able to deal with his strange sounds and skipped words. Other devices on the market play tones that distract the speaker from thinking too much about what he is trying to say. Felixbrod compares the various devices, which are not federally regulated, to glasses or a hearing aid. Studies have shown that they can reduce stuttering from 20 syllables per 100 words to four syllables per 100 words. "For the first time in my life, I was ordering things off a menu," said Felixbrod, who celebrated his 50th birthday four years ago with the new device in place. He became president of the company that develops and sells it. (It costs $3,500.) Maguire said cognitive or behavioral therapy is also useful in treating the social anxieties that develop on the heels of stuttering.These days, Shames enthusiastically talks about stuttering. As he was writing the documentary, he hired Jonathan Skurnik, an independent cinematographer in New York City, to direct it. The film premiered at the international film festival at the Brooklyn Museum recently and was shown again two weeks ago during the annual meeting of the National Stutterers Association in Baltimore. "I want this to help children understand that they can feel comfortable with themselves," he said. "And I want people who don't stutter to understand that this is nothing worthy of a snicker, or slapstick humor." "When I was young, we really suffered in silence," Shames said recently. "Now, there are support groups and associations, and we build our world around other people who stutter. We help one another. "It's a big difference.
Spit It Out is an amazingly powerful, emotional, artistic piece of work. It must have been a journey of the soul to make it. I'm sure it will be a journey of the soul for those who see it.
Professor of Speech and Language Pathology Queens College, NY
SuperFest Award of Achievement, 2005
Picture This Film Festival award, 2005
Brooklyn International Film Festival, 2005
The Stony Brook Digital Video Film Festival, 2005
Assimvivemos, Brazil's International Disabilities Film Festival, 2005
London Disabilities Film Festival, 2005
PBS, Cable and Satellite Broadcasts, 2006
Film Features
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Transcript
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Spit It Out Transcript (pdf) file download
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Spit It Out is a funny and poignant portrait of Jeff Shames' successful efforts to come to terms with his stutter and his family's legacy of denial.
Jeff's father is intolerant of and rageful towards his son's imperfections, while his mother never discusses her own childhood stutter. As a teenager, Jeff turns to alcohol and drugs to mask his shame, and eventually marries an alcoholic who interacts with the outside world for him. After his wife gets sober, Jeff discovers the stuttering self-help community and embarks on a healing journey of sobriety, self-acceptance and forgiveness.
In addition to directing award-winning documentaries that broadcast on PBS and Europe television, Jonathan Skurnik creates innovative audience engagement strategies that change the way students and other viewers think about the world.
Find out about new releases, specials and discounts, and ways to engage your students and community through independent film.
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