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From: Scott Palasik PhD,CCC-SLP
Date: 20 Oct 2011
Time: 17:35:22 -0500
Remote Name: 131.95.172.29
Caitlin. Nice to meet you! Listener reactions to stuttering are variable depending on each person who listens. What I mean by this is it depends on each person’s exposure to stuttering, their perceptions toward disabilities and differences , and just their overall level of sensitivity and compassion they express in their daily lives (just to name a few variables that may influence physical, affective, and cognitive reactions to stuttering). Now the above are just a few thoughts on possible cause of behavioral reactions. The reactive behaviors could be separated into physical, cognitive, and affective behaviors (similar to the ABCs of Stuttering). On a physical level, listeners may look away, may shuffle their feet, they may walk away, they may fill in the person who is stuttering words or sentence, they may interrupt them, they may tease them (we see this behavior with children still today). The listener may possess cognitive reaction behaviors like “Doesn’t this person know how to talk.”, “What are they dumb?”, “How can I help them.”, “They look like they are in pain.”, “Talking like that must be so hard.”. Lastly, listeners could have affective (feelings) reaction behaviors, which have roots from their thoughts toward a person who stutters. These might consist of sadness, shame, frustration, superiority, and compassion (just to name a select few). The above is just a small piece of possible answers to this great question of how people react to stuttering. The project you did for your class is a great one and really can teach lessons in empathy and compassion, lessons you can apply not only to PWS, but to all people with communication disorders and other challenges. Great question Caitlin and good luck with the rest of your academic and professional future! With compassion and kindness, Scott