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From: Ken St. Louis
Date: 16 Oct 2007
Time: 12:29:31 -0500
Remote Name: 157.182.15.19
Dear Nancy, You are asking an existential question. Why should anyone have to suffer? I won't attempt to answer that question, but I will comment briefly that there is a great deal of evidence that the public does in fact hold some negative views of people who stutter and inaccurate beliefs about stuttering. For example, virtually nobody who is reasonably informed should respond positively to a questionnaire item that says that stuttering is caused by a virus or by ghosts, demons, or spirits. But still, some do. Most people, many stutterers included, believe that stutterers are shy, nervous, inhibited, and weak. No one knows for sure why, but maybe it is because most people have "stutterer" a few times in their lives, and those times tended to be when they were scared, nervous, under the influence of "stage fright," etc. Ken