How this US author overcame his speech disability and found his voice

Thomas channels his thoughts through the mediums of writing and social media. Photos: Instagram/Byspencerthomas

Rendered voiceless by a childhood speech disability, Spencer Thomas’ love for the written word became a conduit for expressing his authentic self as he found his path through adolescence into adulthood.

“When I was growing up, I really struggled with the act of communication, of being able to express myself because I was never really great with my words,” said the 21-year-old from Redding, California, the United States.

“I had the capability of speaking, I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t convey it because of speech disabilities that got in the way of getting my point across.

“As I got older, I did learn how to speak and I gained the ability to talk about myself through writing. It was ultimately writing that really became my voice when I did not have one.”

Thomas captures the struggles and triumphs of growing up in his book, exploring the challenges of communication and the transition to adulthood.Thomas, who overcame his speech disability around 11, used his experiences in navigating isolation, communication and the end of childhood as the inspiration for his first book Goodbye to Boyhood, which he self-published earlier this year.

Goodbye to Boyhood is a collection of 10 fictional short stories written to capture moments from early childhood into adulthood, from navigating isolation, conformity and sexuality to first love, grief, gender expression and the beginning of adulthood.

A rising senior studying journalism and English at New York University (NYU) in New York City, Thomas wrote Goodbye to Boyhood to have a “full circle arc” that moves from the beginning of childhood to the start of adulthood and the issues that surface along the way.

“I want people to feel seen, to feel heard and to ultimately feel loved in this book,” Thomas said. “It’s a labour of my love, so people can feel understood.”

Trial and error

Growing up without a voice, Thomas, a New York City resident, knows the weight of wanting to be understood all too well.

From an early age, he said he had several ear infections that affected his ability to communicate with others. Cynthia Roy, mother of Thomas and his twin sister Brooke Thomas, said Thomas had chronic fluid in his ears that hindered his ability to form words correctly.

“I couldn’t pronounce that many words. I knew how to speak, I understood the process of speaking, but I couldn’t communicate really well, so what came out was gibberish. For years people would ask: “Are you British?” because they thought I had a British accent. It kind of sounded like everything was slurred,” he said.

Thomas said he spent a lot of time in speech therapy during elementary and middle school and worked with his father to overcome his disability. He said the first 10 years of his life were “very much trial and error in being able to properly communicate” and he was around 11 that he became confident and overcame the bulk of his disability.

Yet even as he was beginning to find his voice, Thomas found himself at a crossroad in high school when he struggled to be open about his sexuality.

“I realised to myself when I was 17 that I had two paths to go down,” he said. “I could either go down this one path where I’m not honest about who I am, I don’t express myself and then I just continue to say I’m happy, or I could be fully transparent and I can just be myself, and it might come with more challenges, but that’s the point of living authentically is that it’s going to present more challenges, but at least you’re happy.”

Finding peace

It was around this time Thomas said he turned to social media as an outlet for community and to connect with other people struggling to discover their voices. He started creating videos on social media during his senior year of high school to talk about his life as well as isolation, communication, growing up and what it means to make peace.

Thomas shows that the challenges of boyhood can become the foundation for personal growth and empowerment.Nearly four years later, Thomas’ following has grown to over 225,000 followers on his TikTok account - many of whom have sent messages asking for advice around navigating adulthood, sexuality and gender.

Thomas said he tries to answer as many messages as he can, adding he has set up Zoom calls and emails and sometimes written letters to answer questions and offer his advice.

“I think growing up is really hard and we all need someone to see us and recognise us and see our feelings as valid,” he said.

Roy said her son has always been a “deep thinker” and “an old soul,” and that he found his way through writing and through his TikTok account.

“I always thought both of my kids would be advocates in some capacity,” she said. “I always wanted them to do something to help other people in some capacity and I was hoping they would advocate for others, which they both have. I didn’t know or realise he would do it at such a young age.”

Many of Thomas’ questions about growing up were channeled into stories for his book, which he started writing at 19 as a freshman at NYU.

“I just felt I was confused about what it is to be an adult. I had half a foot in my childhood still and half a foot in adulthood... A lot of what my book is about is the answers and clarity of what it is to grow up and understand yourself and navigate adulthood.”

Roy said she believes Thomas’ book appeals to young adults and adults alike “because people have all felt at some point like they don’t fit in and remember how it made them feel.”

“I think one of the most important things to emphasise is while we’ve come a long way in terms of acceptance and moving forward, we have a long way to go,” Roy said, “and I think, as parents, our job is to love and accept our kids exactly how they are.”

Thomas said he wrote the bulk of the short stories for his book in 2022 and finished the full manuscript in 2023. He said the stories came to him “kind of left field,” though the most influential moment in his writing process came in August 2022 with the death of his grandmother - marking what he felt was the end of his childhood.

“I don’t think Goodbye to Boyhood is about losing boyhood at all, but it’s about something you never had to begin with,” Thomas said. “The things we took for granted as a child become the things we miss as adults. We need to understand the gravity of our childhood and the people we once were.”

For Thomas, growing up means navigating the world through trial and error and realising “there is a power and a beauty in the things that challenge our lives.”

“I wouldn’t be who I am today without my speech disability,” Thomas said. “I wouldn’t be who I am without struggling with my sexuality, and that is the essence of Goodbye to Boyhood and navigating boyhood. Our challenges are our power - if we overcome them and grow from that, we are stronger than we were before, and that is a beautiful thing.” – The News-Times/Tribune News Service