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From: Danielle Stevens
Date: 10 Oct 2010
Time: 11:18:59 -0500
Remote Name: 98.236.84.18
Hello, I am a graduate student in Speech Pathology at West Virginia University. I thought this was a very interesting topic, because you don’t often hear speech disorders being called a disability. When I first started reading the paper, I wasn’t sure about the term disability. After reading the WHO definition of disability, I realized exactly where you are coming from. According to this definition, any speech disorder (stuttering, articulation errors, voice problems, etc) that limits someone’s communication would be a disability. I don’t think a lot of people in the U.S.A. would classify themselves as being disabled because of a speech error. I think most people would have the same thoughts as those that you interviewed. They can’t seem to compare themselves to others who may seem “worse off.” In my opinion, it is up to the individual person of how they would want to classify their communication problems. Thanks for sharing your topic! It has really made me think about the term disability!