Jourdan Bellamy is an ambitious 9-year-old little girl who loves to sing and dance, and hopes someday to bring her talents to the stage as an actress and a comedian.  Unfortunately, her fears about fluency have kept her talents hidden from the rest of the world, and have stopped her from even trying out for the drama club at school.

Until now.

Bellamy has been chosen from an open pool of candidates recommended each year by SLPs in the Florida area to receive the 2007 Sean Anderson Memorial SpeechEasy Scholarship.

“She is a delightful, very intelligent little girl,” said Judy Hammer-Knisely, the SLP at Wolfson Children’s Hospital (also known as Baptist Health) in Jacksonville, Florida, who tested, nominated and fitted Bellamy for the SpeechEasy device.  “Amazingly, even though she has a severe stuttering disorder, when we put the device on her and tried to get her to stutter, we couldn’t!” Hammer-Knisely exclaims.   “Jourdan went down to 0 stuttering. That is amazing, because without the SpeechEasy device she was 22% dysfluent in reading and 8% dysfluent in conversation.”

Bellamy was notified in late March that she had been selected to receive the device through the scholarship, which includes submitting a personal essay in her own words, along with the application.  Bellamy will receive the In-The-Canal version of the device.

Several years ago Sean Anderson, a 12-year-old whose life changed dramatically for the better when he started wearing the SpeechEasy device, died very unexpectedly.  Inspired by Sean’s experience, Martha Lopez-Anderson approached Janus shortly after her son’s death to inquire about helping a child in need.  As a tribute to her courage, Janus established and has continued a scholarship program which awards a new device in Sean’s name each spring to a Florida child in need of enhanced fluency.

If you live in the Florida area and are interested in learning more about the Sean Anderson Scholarship, contact an SLP nearest you which you can locate by clicking here http://www.speecheasy.com/where_locator.html. Applications for this year will only be accepted from October 1, 2007 through March 1, 2008. You may request a copy of the application by contacting any Florida provider or Janus Development Group.