PROFILE: Mark O’Malia ‘14, M.S., CCC-SLP
Speaking From Experience To Help Others Open Up As a speech-language pathologist at the American Institute for Stuttering (AIS), Mark O’Malia ‘14 provides specialized, universally affordable stuttering therapy and support for clients ages 2 to 80.
We all carry with us distinctive traits that make us unique. Oftentimes, though, they take time to fully appreciate.
O’Malia commutes to AIS’s New York City headquarters from his Philadelphia home, working with clients ages 2 to 80.
Mark O’Malia ‘14, M.S., CCC-SLP, knows the feeling.
“We want to make communication easier for them, but we’re also helping them develop self-confidence and self-acceptance,” he said. “So much of it is just having real conversations with my clients. I shut my office door and I’m able to ask them, ‘What kind of life do you want to live? What are your goals for therapy?’ I want them to make more friends, to have confidence to go on that job interview, to do that thing that lights them up. A lot of it is stepping into who you want to be. Stuttering is something that becomes easier to deal with the more open you are about it, the more you’re able to physically and emotionally move in it. That allows you to become more confident. It’s not about overcoming stuttering, but how to live with it. That’s the success.
“I stutter, which is something that runs in my family. It started when I was 3,” said the Wilkes-Barre native. “There are a lot of misconceptions about stuttering. Really, it’s just a neurological condition, but growing up with it was just an incredibly challenging experience.” Eventually, O’Malia learned to not only accept his condition, but to thrive with it – thanks in large part to the welcoming community he found at The University of Scranton. His time at the University led him to his “dream job” as a speech-language pathologist at the American Institute for Stuttering (AIS), where since 2017 he’s provided specialized, universally affordable stuttering therapy and support for children and adults.
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THE SCRANTON JOURN A L
“I take my job very seriously,” he continued. “It’s such a privilege to show a client that I do understand what they’re
