Hedinger tackles stuttering, bullying
The book, “Bullyblossom: A Tale of Overcoming Bullies and Embracing Stuttering to Live a Life of Achievement,” is available online at Lulu.com for $11. It features illustrations by local, long-time editorial cartoonist Charlie Daniel to help show points made in the book, Cox said.
Hedinger and Cox said they hoped the book would help children who stutter and their parents in coping with bullies.
“I stuttered all my life,” said Cox, now 83. “The book is aimed for students 12 to 20.
“It’s for young people, it’s for their parents and it’s for special ed school teachers who have the challenge of working with handicapped students who stutter,” he added. “My goal is to get it in every school library in the state.”
“About 1 percent of kids stutter, but very often they don’t always meet someone else who stutters, so they tend to feel alone in their struggles with speech,” Hedinger said. “A lot of people don’t really understand stuttering, so (the children) can feel kind of lonely.
“So having these stories out there, having books, having videos and having the presence of someone who stutters and movies in a positive light can be very reassuring for kids,” she added. “They’re not alone and (stuttering) doesn’t have to hold you back.”
Growing up in Knoxville in the 1940s and 1950s, Cox knew only too well the impact of bullies, but that did not stop him from achieving success in his life. In one instance, to stop an elementary school bully, he challenged that bully to a boxing match and won.
While about 80 percent of children with speech impediments do grow out of stuttering by age 12, Cox said, he added about 20 percent stutter for the rest of their lives.
Cox was among the 20 percent. “Now with a scale of 10 to one, with 10 being the worst, I was a nine in elementary school,” he recalled. “I’m about a one now. I have improved over the years.”
During Cox’s life, he was chairman of the board of SunTrust Bank, been in real estate and currently owns Ashe’s Fine Wines & Liquors with his son, Thad Cox Jr.
Hedinger, Cox unite
“I’ve been going over to the UT Hearing and Speech Center for the last seven or eight years, talking to their graduate class, and I would tell them about my experiences as a youth stuttering,” Cox said.
One day, one of the students suggested he write about those experiences.
Cox replied, “Well, I’ve never written a book, but if somebody here at the university would write it with me and talk about what’s available today for young stutterers — that wasn’t available to me while I was growing up — I’ll write the book.”
“About six years ago, I was on TV promoting our stuttering support group for the Knoxville area,” said Hedinger, who specializes in stuttering disorders for children, adolescents and adults.
“Since then, (Cox has) come to our support group and he has been a guest lecturer in our classes at UT for all of our speech pathology graduate students,” she said. “He has always wanted to give back to the community.”
Cox “really has just wanted other kids who stutter to understand they’re not alone, and he wanted to share some of his stories of growing up as a kid who stutters, what he did in response to it and (show) stuttering doesn’t have to hold you back,” Hedinger said.
“He has had great successes in life, and he just wanted to give kids some hope and recognize that stuttering can still be present and you can still have a life of achievement. He agreed to write a book if he could have some input from a clinical standpoint.”
In the book, she provides clinical comments and anti-bullying tips to help others, too.
Among the tips, Hedinger advises when a person is speaking, do not try to finish that person’s sentence. Let that person finish the sentence. Also, she advised maintain eye contact while the person is speaking.
