Please fill in this short questionnaire if you’d like Katherine to give a talk at your organization, school or bookstore.
Why hire Katherine Preston?
You want your audience to be inspired by her uplifting personal story and her lessons on vulnerability, strength, empathy and normality.
Katherine is both a stutterer and a motivational speaker and her message of facing your fears resonates with audiences everywhere. In speaking to everyone from corporations to conferences, she explains that we all have more in common than we think and that our flaws are often our greatest assets. Her story of triumph and self-acceptance over her stutter leaves audiences with a positive attitude towards whatever imperfections or demons they are battling in their lives.
With honesty, warmth and humor, Katherine explores the empowerment that can come from realizing that we can work with who we are, that we are not broken and that our differences are what give us our humanity.
Each of the topics Katherine explores can be tailored to fit the needs of your audience. For example:
Out With It
Katherine will discuss the journey chronicled in her memoir, Out With It. What starts as a personal battle against stuttering opens into a story that reveals what it means to find self-acceptance and how to live a life with a different voice. Katherine discusses the year she spent travelling around America interviewing over 100 stutterers, speech therapists and researchers. Her talk draws on the stories of many of the people she met and her story highlights the positive rewards that can come from confronting our challenges and shows that we are all stronger than we think we are.
Gifts of imperfection
By acknowledging and embracing our differences we can participate in and understand the diverse world we live in. Katherine passionately brings to life the world of stuttering and what the condition can teach all of us about our humanity. Having spent much of her life wanting to be ‘normal’ she has learnt to see the benefits of being different. Drawing on anecdotes from her own life, as well as many of the stutterers and researchers she interviewed, she looks at the wealth of stutterers who have gone on to find success regardless of their level of so-called ‘normalcy’ and explores the power that comes from developing self-acceptance.
The audience will leave this talk fundamentally changed and empowered with a greater understanding of the connections that come from compassion, authenticity, empathy and vulnerability.
Understanding stuttering: for speech therapy graduates and speech therapists
Katherine discusses her own journey with stuttering and draws on her personal experience of speech therapy, and her interviews with various researchers, to explore how therapists can best harness their potential to help a stuttering client. Although every stutterer is different, this interactive talk explores the traits that many of the most effective therapists have harnessed. She explores the challenges inherent in any change and underlines that perfection does not have to be not the ultimate goal.
This talk is not focused on speech therapy ‘tools’ rather it is designed to supplement clinical treatments in order to help clients of any age combat shame and develop confidence. Therapists are encouraged to ask questions and the audience will leave with a greater understanding of stuttering and increased confidence in their ability to support their clients.
This lecture can be given by Katherine alone or in combination with a speech therapist dedicated to working with both children and adults who stutter.
My super-power: for stuttering support groups
Want someone to talk about the challenge and beauty of stuttering, whilst actually stuttering? Having battled against her stutter for most of her life, Katherine intimately knows the power that can come from understanding that our differences can be super-powers rather than burdens. In this talk, Katherine draws from her own journey as well as the many stories that she heard on her year spent interviewing stutterers across the country. She explores how making comparisons is a waste of time and explains how our imperfections are what connect us to each other and to our humanity.
An insider’s perspective: for parents and teachers
A central challenge for both teachers and parents is to bring out the best in every child. Self-esteem is essential to any child’s success and this powerful talk supports parents and teachers in understanding what it is like to be a child who stutters and how we can foster pride by celebrating their strengths and gifts.
Katherine uses real life stories to look at the ways parents and teachers can support children who stutter. She details the various ways that parents can explore the joint support networks of self-help and speech therapy and gives concrete tips on how best to react when someone is stuttering. The audience will leave with a greater understanding of what stuttering can teach us about talking, listening and understanding.