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From: Peter Reitzes
Date: 11 Oct 2010
Time: 20:16:05 -0500
Remote Name: 76.15.239.95
Teela, thanks for writing. You ask, “Has there been any evidence that the word ‘fluency’ carries a negative stigma by clients?” In my experience, the word “fluency” does carry, for some and perhaps many, negative experiences. I am not sure if I would call that a negative stigma. You also wrote, “I do know that the word ‘stutterer’ has been changed to ‘a person who stutters’ due to this reason.” I have a different view. It has been my experience that some prefer “person who stutters” because they think “stutterer” holds a perceived negative stigma (which I think is different than a negative stigma) and because of political correctness. I also think that many people prefer person who stutters so that they do not accidentally offend. You may want to check out this article by Ken St. Louis titled “Person-First Labeling and Stuttering” (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T8H-3VXS9R4-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=d2bf19323234ff9d9a3617518e5b02bb).