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From: Jessica Karn, TSHH, SLP-graduate student
Date: 21 Oct 2006
Time: 15:28:46 -0500
Remote Name: 74.70.3.72
I am a gruduate student at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY and plan to graduate in two months with my Master's Degree. I then hope to go on to specialize in fluency disorders. Stuttering has always been my passion with regard to Communication Disorders and Sciences. This is because although all "communication disorders", whether a language disorder, an articulation disorder, a voice disorder, or a hearing impairment, can have implications on a person's self-esteem, stuttering, to me, falls into a whole different category. Many PWS, especially those who are covert, can go to great lengths to change their words around, to avoid situations or conversational topics, to hide their stuttering. Others demonstrate extensive avoidance and expectancy behaviors, such as head jerking, eye blinking, etc. in an attempt to get through the moment of stuttering, all of which eventually stop working, leaving the PWS feeling helpless, disappointed, frustrated, and embarrassed. Stuttering is more than a communication impairment. It impacts the entire life of the PWS, his/her thoughts and feelings, his/her life's choices. While I am not a PWS, I hope that as a professional, and as a clinician-counselor, I can attempt to empathically understand what it must be like to live with stuttering every day. I do not believe that it is or has been easy for any one of you. Each person comes with his/her own experiences, strengths, and perceived difficulties. But what I have found is that stuttering can be absolutely debilitating if one allows it to control their lives...where they go, what they say, what they do. If a person must go home exhausted at the end of each day because they have tried to be a human dictionary, replacing as many anticipated stuttered words with "easier" words, that is disabling. When a person is mocked or demeaned because of his stuttering, the feelings that he is left with are absolutely disabling. When a person allows others to walk all over him because he lacks the assertiveness to stand up for himself because of his stuttering, that is disabling. When a person is denied an opportunity or judged to be less than adequate because of his stuttering, that is disabling. When a person will not pick up the phone because he does not want to stutter, that is disabling. When a person will not order what they want at a restaurant to avoid stuttering, that is disabling. But as many times as I have seen these types of reactions and situations, I have seen just as many, maybe more, who have made a choice not to allow stuttering to control or disable them. But what does this require? For some, they have gone through extensive therapy to get to this point, and as a result their fluency has increased. For others, they just woke up one morning and said "That's it, I've had enough." For others it has meant becoming part of an advocacy group - if there is one thing that the world lacks, it is stuttering awareness. But when PWS take an active role in advocating for themselves and for all PWS who won't or feel that they can't do it for themselves, a bit of that disability can be chipped away. When a person is able to live authentically, speak authentically, and feel authentically, despite his/her communication difference/disorder/disability, whatever one may wish to call it, that is what chips away at the disability. I have heard some say that stuttering is their gift from God. What a frame of mind! What makes an impairment a "DISABILITY" or a "HANDICAP" is how the person thinks and feels about the impairment. And how a person thinks and feels about the impairment is reflected, in turn, by what they choose to DO with it. Again, I am not saying that it is easy. I am saying that you can make a CHOICE to make a change in the way that you think, feel, and behave as a result of your stuttering. Help is available, but it also comes from within. It is possible to chip away at the disability...this starts with acceptance, and then hard work to target the thoughts, feelngs, and behaviors. It is probably a lifelong process. And then, when you have begun to live authentically...share it with others. Be an advocate for yourself and others. Start a stuttering support group. Support others who are still living inside of the disability so that they, too, can become free. Stuttering, the impairment, will be with you all your life. Stuttering, the disability, can be torn down, along with the self-defeating thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It will not be EASY, but I PROMISE YOU, IT WILL BE WORTH IT! You have the power to choose how to think, feel, and act, and how to change. While you can't control how others may react, you can control whether you let it beat you down, or whether you walk through with your head held high. You can't control every moment of stuttering, but you can choose whether you give up or whether you press forward. Is stuttering a disability? It depends on your frame of mind. It all comes down to YOU.