Other than the standard hyperactivity, nothing really. I have a slight sibilant S also. (or, if you're me, a zlight zibilant esz).

I dunno - I just got pissed that other folks/kids/whatever couldn't keep up with me. Still get annoyed at that, actually.

my little brother had the echophenomenon thing for a while, I think when he was about 3 but I could be wrong about the age. It drove us all crazy but we assumed he'd stop in time, and indeed he did - no shrinks involved. He's fine now (aged 22) and seemingly very popular with the ladies...

I remember I was once watching Goodfellas on TV with my parents and when the gangster 'Jimmy Two-Times' showed up, I think we all sat bolt upright for a second.

Think about it: ever met a suave 8-year old? would you trust him if you did?

I was a suave 8-year old, but you're right. I didn't even trust myself!

One of my siblings used to repeat everything I said. :) I think this contributed to my ego.

When I was a kid I mumbled everything and I didn't move my mouth when I spoke. Some teachers didn't know how I was speaking since I wasn't moving my mouth. Other teachers decided the problem was an accent, since I am Chinese and all. Bastards. I have no accent.

I was a pretty outcast kid so everything made me feel defective and strange!

I used to pronounce r's as w's, in that "cute little kid way," except it became less cute as I got older. I never went to speech therapy or anything, I just stopped doing it after awhile. It crops up from time to time when I'm tired or stressed.

I'm also a terrible runner. Did anyone see that episode of Friends where Phoebe is a really embarrasing runner? That's me. I just don't know what to do with my limbs. My SO laughs at me any time I have to run to get something.

I still stutter sometimes when I get tired. Not often though. And I was never teased about it for some reason.

What I *was* teased about was the fact that I blush very easily. I still do. And it's rarely embarrassment. I can speak in public (actually, I love public speaking), make the filthiest jokes of anyone I know, be caught naked... it's hard to embarrass me. It's surprise. I always blush when I'm surprised. Hence, any time I was called upon in school (I was always daydreaming, or reading under the desk) I blushed. People gave me so much shit about it. And of course, I do blush more if people point it out. In fact, in college, my friends (aka assholes!) discovered that they could make me blush by telling me I was even if I wasn't! gah!

I also go red when I lie, making me a very honest person by default.

I do that blushing thing too, gaspode! Mine can be embarrassment, or surprise, or whatever, but it's apparently REALLY noticeable because I've had complete strangers mention it. And as you say, pointing it out only makes it worse. Ugh.

I ate paper.

In elementary school I had some sort of problem with my Ss that a speech teacher decided needed to be fixed, but the way she described the proper way of making the sound actually worsened the problem for a while. My parents pulled me out of that and it cleared up, more or less, on its own.

When I was doing a Shakespearean acting workshop in high school, the vocal coach was a little frustrated with how heavy my Ss and Rs were. Most of it was simply that I had grown up in Chicago, where those Ss and Rs are normal, but it was compounded by my having braces.

It's something that still bothers me about my speech. I can lighten those sounds up when I'm acting, or working from a well-practiced script, but when I'm giving presentations or doing other public speaking, I still notice it a lot and inwardly cringe. My voice just sounds so heavy.

I ate paper.

So that's what happened to my math homework.

It's amazing how being overweight makes one invisible. I don't know that that can really be considered a handicap but it sure makes one feel defective.

On a more serious note I was born without hip sockets and didn't walk until I was almost three. That didn't make me feel like a freak because I don't really remember it. However, I will, at some point, have to have replacement hips installed. Or so I've been told.

My younger brother who, like jon's friend, had* a hair lip and cleft palate. Man, I got tired of everyone asking me what was wrong with him. Ask him yourself, boneheads! He doesn't bite. Well, maybe he does now, but I don't want to go there. Anyway, he had and has lots of friends and hasn't had any problems finding girlfriends and/or wives.

*He's had several surgeries and it's been corrected as well as can be. He also grows a a mustache and that helps soften the effect as well. Both my brother and I were "pill babies".

(also, I'm home from work today and out my window I was just treated to the spectacle (via my window) of a bald guy screaming obscenities at the window of a guy in a phone company van for blocking him in. He pounded his fist agaist the window, and after a final "Fuck you, motherfucker!" stormed off, then the van left and he got his car and went. Then my octogenarian Greek landlady came out and started scraping fallen leaves out of the vacated parking spot with a big piece of cardboard. But the car alarms have abated. Soon there'll be a police siren or argument and we always have the Amtrak and NYCTA trains which run perpendicular to eachother 3 blocks away and our bedroom is in some kind of sonic twilight zone where street coversation and noise drifts up as if it's happening right in the room. Friday nights, we always hear the click-clacking of high heels and slurs and bellows of people coming back from the bars.

I like to think of it as a beautifully disaocrdant Urban Symphony. But the neighborhood probably thinks of me as that weird-looking drunk who sits on his porch listening to loud music in his bathrobe so it's all good. Just playing my part in the orchestra)

(now, one of the actors next door is singing. It's like 'Rite Of Spring' around here)

That happens to someone I know when they eat anything corn derived.