Teen Mateo Sanchez raises stuttering awareness

Mateo Sanchez stood in front of his class presenting a neon green poster with the word stuttering in big letters at the top, each letter a different color. He was in second grade, and it was his first time giving a presentation about his stutter.

“Just let me talk,” Sanchez said to his classmates. “Don’t say the words for me. That just makes me skip that word.”

Sanchez was 3 years old when his family noticed that he had a stutter. His father Jesse Sanchez said that Mateo was his first experience with stuttering. 

“We didn’t know anything about stuttering awareness or strategies or what it means,” Jesse Sanchez said. “As a family, we were on the journey with him.”

Mateo began speech therapy through his school, where the goal was to eliminate his stutter. After a few years of trying that, the family met Jessica Hudson, a speech language pathologist who owns Stuttering and Speech Therapy of Arizona. She taught a different approach.

“Well, what happens if he continues to stutter and we’ve now, not me, but in his world, given the idea of stuttering is something to be fixed?” Hudson asked the Sanchez family when they first met. “Maybe we can switch the mindset a little bit.”

Through Hudson, Mateo and his family learned strategies to deal with not only the stutter, but also the emotions and thoughts that come with the stutter.

Meeting George Springer

In 2017, as an effort to find examples of similar people, Mateo looked up a list of celebrities who stuttered. Somewhere on the list, Mateo found then-Astros right fielder George Springer.

“Baseball has always been a safe place for Mateo, where he can have fun and enjoy himself and play the game,” Jesse said.

Naturally, Mateo was excited to find someone who openly stuttered playing the game he loved. Jesse, who covers baseball for MLB.com, realized that it might help his baseball-loving son to meet Springer. With the help of then-Astros bench coach Alex Cora, Mateo and Springer were able to meet.

“Being able to meet George Springer and have him as somebody to look up to, who openly stutters on interviews and who is such an advocate for people who stutter, he’s such a great role model,” Hudson said. “To personally get to be part of his life is just, man, what an opportunity, and what a special gift that he has.”

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Mateo and Springer have kept in touch since they met for the first time in August 2017, and it was Springer who inspired Mateo to give the presentation he did in second grade and spread stuttering awareness.

“Seeing someone who had a stutter be so helpful to the community, I want to follow him and help people,” Mateo Sanchez said of Springer.

Mateo’s presentations didn’t stop in second grade. He continued to give presentations to his classes on stuttering, making more bright colored posters. As an eighth grader, he was student body president and gave a presentation to all teachers and staff on stuttering awareness.

Social media campaign

This May, as he finished up his freshman year at Brophy College Prep in Phoenix, Mateo launched the Instagram account @stutterawareness101 to raise awareness of stuttering facts and do’s and don’ts.

Mateo Sanchez also started a TikTok account and YouTube channel to raise awareness. Different community members, such as MLB Network’s Siera Santos and Good Morning Arizona meteorologist April Warnecke have collaborated with Mateo to share facts on stuttering.

“I want to help as many people as I can from all ages and give them the same help that I got,” Mateo said.

Mateo’s goal is to show other kids who stutter that they’re not on their own. Since starting his Instagram account, Mateo has received direct messages and comments from people thanking him and sharing their own experiences with stuttering.

“It’s just so neat, because there’s kids out there who maybe they don’t stutter, but they might say sounds differently, or they might have trouble reading, or things like that,” Hudson said. “I think he’s a voice for kids that have differences.”