January 12, 2010

Tourrettes and stammering

I just finished watching "Front of the class". It is a deeply moving / inspiring true story of a young man suffering from Tourrette's syndrome. Tourrettes and Stammering have some similarities- Same genes are supposed to cause both the neurological problems. Both get worse during stress. Both get better when people around us understand the problem and accept the person with it. While Tourrettes cant be masked/ hidden, stammering can. And this gives rise to further problems for stammerers.
The movie captures the fact that - acceptance, willingness to talk about it, determination to work extra hard to compensate for the problem- these are the only "cures" for the problem. Family support and understanding of friends can make a lot of difference. Mainstream medical practice is pretty help less. Strongly recommended to PWS.. There are a lot of messages hidden in it for us. Ten slices are available at youtube, beginning :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5shTIVTnAs

1 comment:

Harish Usgaonker said...

What you have pointed out is very right Sachin Sir..... This movie has lots of messages stored for us, PWS. I feel, if we could just replace the word "Tourrettes" with "Stammering", then everything else is just the same...

I liked two things about this movie... He starts by calling this Tourrettes as "Constant Companion", and in the end, goes on to call it "A Teacher". How truly it applies to stammering as well!!!