[ Contents | Search |Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Ken St. Louis
Date: 05 Oct 2004
Time: 09:33:10 -0500
Remote Name: 157.182.12.221
Dear Shelly, Good question, but not an easy one to answer. It would be like asking, "I am overweight. Will I be treated differently?" The simple answer is "Yes, stuttering typically does affect how you are treated." Having said that, I need to back pedal and say, "It depends." The effect of your stuttering on how others treat you depends, of course, on the symptoms and severity of your stuttering. It also depends a great deal on how you present yourself as a stutterer. If you maintain normal eye contact as you speak, if you can differentiate between normal curiosity about your stuttering and ridicule, if you accept yourself, then most reactions of others are not particularly significant. Finally, I would have to say that the career that you choose will play a role as well. You can find people who stutter as role models in almost every field, but some fields would be hard for many stuttering persons to enter and expect to excel, e.g., air traffic control or radio/TV announcing. There is a great deal of wonderful information available in the archives of STUTT-L on this topic. I would suggest you join the listserv and check out the archives on such topics as interviewing for jobs, dealing with stigma or discrimination, or learning to manage other people's reactions. I hope this is useful. Good luck, Ken