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(Audio transcript available upon request)

Episode #235: Stand up comedian, Nina G, joins me to talk about… well, a lot of things! We have an animated chat about her new book, “Stutterer Interrupted: The Comedian Who Almost Didn’t Happen” and her excellent keynote given at the World Stuttering Congress in Iceland this year. Nina also has dyslexia and received undeserved bad grades in school due to the lack of accommodation which she needed. But that didn’t stop Nina who credits her parents for teaching her self-advocacy. Today, Nina is an advocate for disability rights and book author.

While this is an uncharacteristically long, long episode, you won’t want to miss hearing all about how Nina crafts her jokes from her frustrations with the reactions towards her stuttering from ignorant fluenters reactions to her stuttering and how she built up her self-esteem and self-advocacy. And lots more!

I also ask Nina to give an introduction to dyslexia, how we can accommodate people with dyslexia, and also how I can draw my Franky Banky comics to accommodate readers with dyslexia… and lots more!

Here is the breakdown of this super long episode:

0:00 My long intro.

5:30 Introducing Nina G.

9:10 Nina’s keynote, how the media can accurately represent people to stutter, how to make comics accessible to people with dyslexia, when fluenters give people who stutter “the pity moan” (you definitely don’t want to miss Nina’s impressions of this!) and “the face”, how you can experience a life uninterrupted by hanging out with others who stutter.

19:30 Being diagnosed with stuttering and dyslexia, lack of proper accommodation in the school system in 1980s, learning self-advocacy from Nina’s parents, Nina gets a failing grade due to improper accommodation, Nina’s revenge, her doctorate in psychology, and WWJD?.

30:43 What is dyslexia, what it’s like to have dyslexia, how dyslexia works, Nina’s processing time as a child vs as an adult, diagnosing dyslexia at age 8.

38:42 Context is key in making visual and textual content accessible to people with dyslexia, how to design accessible children’s books, Nina’s analogy of breaking down information Springfield style (yes, of The Simpsons!), different types of dyslexia, Nina demonstrates how she uses technology to help her read books, and how reading along with captions can help her when reading books or watching videos.

51:39 Removing barriers in classrooms, the benefits of educators and workplaces creating a cognitive and emotional environment that is more conducive for people with dyslexia (and all disabilities), focusing on people’s strengths, how descriptive text is more effective than fonts for people with dyslexia, creating accessible hashtags, how some people with dyslexia in English or Spanish are not dyslexic with character based languages such as Mandarin and Cantonese, errors in automatic captions (or “craptions”), using dictation technology, and where to buy Nina’s book

1:10:00 Listen to the question and answer period following Nina’s keynote in Iceland. Topics covered include: how Nina was diagnosed and came to accept both stuttering and dyslexia; coping with good and bad periods with stuttering; and creating an environment of inclusion and advocacy in schools for students with disabilities.

1:31:30 My super quick outro followed by a few minutes of me walking around a park.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Stutterer Interrupted: The Comedian Who Almost Didn’t Happen
• Once Upon An Accommodation
• Nina G’s website
• Who Am I To Stop It
• Listen to about 40 minutes of me walking around a park

This ultra long episode is brought to you by my book, Stuttering is Cool: A Guide to Stuttering in a Fast-Talking World. a humorous survival guide to stuttering packed with methods, tips, stories, and comics. Order your copy now!