The Caged Lawyer

Calgary lawyer Michael Niven credits the Institute for Stuttering Treatment and Research (ISTAR) for changing his life.

Holly Gray - 12 March 2012

Michael Niven and his wife, Catherine Simmons-NivenThe videotape was not easy to find, almost as though it had been hiding.

The Institute for Stuttering Treatment and Research (ISTAR) has a room dedicated to them; a space piled from floor to ceiling with videocassettes and, closer to the door, DVDs. Michael Niven laughed when he heard I was looking for his.

"That historical artifact!" he exclaimed in a Scottish accent softened from over 30 years living in Calgary. "I'm sure you'll get quite the shock."

I did.

A substantially younger Niven with a red mop of hair, a thick beard, and a plaid shirt was on camera from the shoulders up.

Michael Niven was the MC at the Institute for Stuttering Treatment and Research"It's - May - fouuuuuuuuuurth," he started, stopping abruptly and closing his eyes, "1987 - and - I," his eyelids, now half open, begin to flutter and his eyeballs roll to the back of his head, "and - I'mmmmm - Michael - Niven."

About one per cent of the general population, or 30,000 Albertans and 337,000 Canadians, stutter. Niven, now a partner at Carscallen LLP law firm in Calgary, was one of them.

He had a stutter that, several weeks before appearing on camera in '87, resulted in the then 33 year old being let go from his job at another Calgary law firm, a position he'd held for five years.

"Stuttering affected all aspects of my life - social interactions with friends, dating, participating in school, my profession - pretty much everything except talking to the dog," Niven said. "Looking back, I'm surprised the law firm kept me on as long as they did."

"Growing up, my parents tried many different treatments to help with my stutter, but none of them worked. After getting fired from my job I was discombobulated. I had a new baby and a mortgage. Something had to be done."

Niven rooted through his desk drawer for an Alberta Report article on ISTAR that his mother-in-law had clipped for him some months earlier. After reading about founder Einer Boberg's new intensive clinic program to help manage stuttering, Niven called the institute and signed up for the next three-week session.

He travelled to Edmonton and on the first day of the clinic, ISTAR cofounder Deborah Kully filmed his pre-treatment video. Niven then spent five days a week with Kully and other ISTAR speech-language pathologists, employing various techniques to manage stuttering.

"For an entire week they wouldn't let me speak at a rate faster than 60 syllables a minute, which is extremely slow," he reminisced. "Within a couple of days it struck me that ISTAR's methods were so obviously going to work for me. I was completely committed to controlling my stutter."

ISTAR also challenged Niven by having him converse with strangers, attend mock cocktail parties, make phone calls, attend a simulated job interview, and even give a speech in front of an audience.

"I remember going to the mall, approaching strangers, and giving them my little story of, 'Hello. My name's Michael Niven, I am a person who stutters, and I'd like to do an interview with you,'" he said.

"Before the clinic, I'd have rather cut off my head. By the end of the clinic, it was as if I'd been locked up my entire life and someone had just handed me a key. Things I could never have done before were suddenly possible."

By the time Niven returned home to Calgary three weeks later, the person in the pre-treatment video was unrecognizable, even to his wife of eight years.

"I remember seeing Michael for the first time after the ISTAR clinic and feeling so full of joy and hope, but I couldn't help holding my breath for fear that it wouldn't last," said Catherine Simmons-Niven.

She had met Niven in 1977 after he left Bathgate, a small town between Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland, to study for his master of laws at the University of Alberta. Despite his stutter, his "nerdy" choice of a first date to the ballet, and his strange attire of "bell-bottom jeans and sneakers with laces tied in bows," Simmons-Niven had fallen in love.

"On our first date, the elevator in my apartment was slow, so Michael bolted down the stairwell yelling, 'WOOP-WOOP-WOOP-WOOP,'" she remembers "He surprised me. I realized that regardless of his stutter, Michael was a fun, creative, fearless person."

But before ISTAR, something was always missing in his life.

"Michael is very social, and I think he lived with the door half open in his younger years," she said. "Before ISTAR, he was silenced. And now, 25 years later, his speech is near perfect. Every once in a while he will be in quite the chatty mood and I think, 'Oh my goodness! You're still making up for lost time.'"

Niven has a long list of accomplishments under his belt that he said would not be possible without the help of ISTAR. He's a father of three, a successful lawyer specializing in oil and gas, a founder and director of the Canadian Stuttering Association and counsel to the Canadian Cancer Society.

"Of all my accomplishments, my greatest milestone is any occasion when I can stand up in front of a room and give a speech, a talk, or appear on TV," he said. "All of those are things I know I couldn't do without the help I got from ISTAR."

Niven was the MC at ISTAR's 25th anniversary celebration at the University of Alberta on Saturday, March 3, 2012.

About The Institute for Stuttering Treatment and Research (ISTAR)
The Institute for Stuttering Treatment and Research (ISTAR) is a self-funded institute in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Alberta. Our mission is to serve people of all ages who stutter, through excellence in treatment, clinical research, clinical training, and public education. We are grateful to our donors, without whom we would not be able to provide affordable treatment or achieve our mission

About the University of Alberta Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine
As the only free standing faculty of rehabilitation in Canada, the University of Alberta Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine balances its activities among learning, discovery and citizenship (including clinical practice). A research leader in musculoskeletal health, spinal cord injuries and common spinal disorders (back pain), the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine aims to improve the quality of life of citizens in our community. The three departments, Occupational Therapy (OT), Physical Therapy (PT) and Speech Pathology and Audiology (SPA) offer professional entry programs. The Faculty offers thesis-based MSc and PhD programs in Rehabilitation Science, attracting students from a variety of disciplines including OT, PT, SLP, psychology, physical education, medicine and engineering.