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From: Joe Klein
Date: 07 Dec 2007
Time: 10:11:20 -0600
Remote Name: 74.76.104.81
Hi Casey. Thanks. You wrote: "I was wondering what kind of experience you have had with other people's perceptions of stuttering compared to your own perception of the disorder? Through your struggle to overcome your fears, did you find that people were more accepting in the "real world" than a lot of college students studing communication disorders have been taught to believe? And do you think that these stereotypes and beliefs could be a contributing factor to the reason that so many new clinicians are afraid or unprepared to work with stutterers?" Wow, that's a big question. I think that my students who have to go out to do some voluntary stuttering on the phone and at stores certainly find that many listeners couldn't care less, but that there certainly are some lousy listeners out there, and just some downright mean people. The reason that clinicians are unprepared to work with people who stutter? Because their training has failed them. Many people get poor graduate classes and never work with someone who stutters in school, or, they do, are supervised by someone who may, themselves, be uncomfortable working with people who stutter. The problem isn't a perception... it is a true lack of training of a majority of the practitioners in our field. Take care, Joe.