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From: Jessica Karn TSHH
Date: 10 Oct 2005
Time: 14:55:10 -0500
Remote Name: 66.65.246.38
I think that it is really important to read each person's different experience with stuttering. I am a graduate student studying communication disorders and I currently have an adult client who stutters pretty severely. In recent discussions that I have had with him during therapy, he has expressed his frustration about other members of his fluency support group. He was upset because he felt like there were certain members whose stuttering were pretty mild, and he did not think that they should make such a big deal about their stuttering. He felt that because his stuttering was much more severe than theirs that stuttering should affect them less. My counsel to him was that each person's experience with stuttering is different, and that stuttering is made up of much more than just the repetitions, prolongations, or blocks that one may experience. It is about that person's feelings and attitude about their stuttering and about themselves. I told him that I felt that each person is given a certain burden or load to carry (in his case he feels that his stuttering is a burden, while I have heard other who feel it is a blessing) and that it didn't really matter how severe a person's stuttering is, but how it affects their daily lives, their self-esteem, as well as environmental demands and reactions toward stuttering can also impact the "handicap" that stuttering may put on one's life. I think that it is very important to remember that stuttering is not simply repeating, prolonging, or blocking on sounds, but a whole-person picture of the impact of stuttering. It is important to realize that stuttering affects different people differently, and that listening to a person's story about their stuttering is much more important than charting number of dysfluencies.