Around 2010 I got involved in helping people who stutter, parents of children who stutter and all others interested. We used a forum where we would share our experiences (good and bad) and it was a small but very good "community".
As the years went by, new ideas came to mind and my next goal was to create a website. In cooperation with people from Valmod therapy, we published articles about our struggle with stuttering, spread positive energy and many other things. So for some time, we published articles and tried to pass on everything positive that we learned through life with stuttering - how to deal with it and how to defeat (lessen) it.
Martina, the speech therapist, joined us after some time, bringing professional knowledge and experience to the portal. We were answering hundreds of emails, Facebook messages, trying to do our best in helping others. After a certain time, I noticed that we would often get the same questions, and that's when the idea for this book was born.
I've read a lot of books about stuttering, but honestly, very few are written by a person who stutters. All these books are professional and "boring", so the reader quickly loses focus, interest and eventually - gives up. I wanted to write a book which would be approachable to all readers, especially those who stutter. Even though I'm not an expert (speech therapist or anyone of the sort), I just had to slip in a bit of theory, but (I hope) not too much.
The goal of this book is to encourage all people who stutter (and those who don’t) to realize that the key to a happy life is positive thinking. This book doesn’t have to be only a book about stuttering but a book for all people who struggle with any form of depression in their life.
Finally, I hope the book will give you at least a little bit of help you need or encourage you to ponder - that would make me the happiest!
About the author
Tomislav Matijević was born in 1984 in Osijek, Croatia, where he completed primary and secondary school, more precisely the Electrical and Traffic School. Upon completion of mandatory schooling, he enrolled in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Osijek, majoring in computer science, and graduated from the same in 2010. He is married and the father of two daughters. He is currently self-employed in his own company and has been working as a development engineer of software solutions for many years.
All in all, we could say that Tomislav is a person who does not deviate much from the social profile of a successful man. However, what cannot be said about Tomislav, unless you have gotten to know him personally, is that he is a person who stutters. More precisely, a person who lives with a stutter. And not in a negative sense.
Tomislav started stuttering when he was about 5 years old (he doesn't remember exactly), for an unknown reason/event. After going through many methods and therapies throughout his childhood, only after completing the VaLMod therapy did Tomislav become aware of what stuttering means to him and how to live happily with this speech disorder. Tomislav's stuttering does not prevent him from leading a happy and fulfilling life today.
He wants the same for others who struggle with stuttering and for this reason in 2010 he launched a web site called Mucanje.com. Over time he felt a great desire to transfer his thoughts and acquired knowledge into a book, so a larger number of people could significantly improve their daily lives by this type of reading.