The Culture of Stuttering

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stuttering culture from the perspective of a non-stutterer

From: Gretchen Hess, SPHP student
Date: 21 Oct 2006
Time: 17:00:16 -0500
Remote Name: 24.2.51.54

Comments

Dr. Shames, Thank you for a wonderful, informative, and inspiring article. It was especially energizing to read about your experiences as a non-stuttering clinician who nevertheless had extreme success in the field, and clearly has made a difference to a lot of people. As one of your previous commentators noted, with the largest percentage of stutterers being male and the majority of SLPs female, one does wonder at times--ESPECIALLY if one is not a stutterer, as most of us are not--how much more effective and inspiring we could be as models if we were able to say to a stuttering client, "I, too, am a stutterer, and yet I have found many techniques helpful in gaining more control over my fluency..." I have a great interest in working with stutterers, since I have had three children who went through treatment for stuttering and were greatly helped...but I do notice that even I mentally "discriminate" against non-PWS when advice about how to help stutterers is being spoken about/written about--as if only a PWS had that "badge of expertise" you mention. It was great to have this mostly covert kind of discrimination so rationally and evenhandedly addressed in your article. Another aspect of your article that I believe will remain with me and with your other readers as well is your convincing argument that either/or thinking (as in, the insistence on either a goal of stutter-free speech or of mere modification) will not help anyone (neither individual PWS nor the culture of stuttering as a whole). You do an excellent job of explaining why only an attitude of appreciating ALL approaches, and the willingness to take the best of each theory/approach/technique/perspective and combine them to make the most effective individual approach possible, will advance the cause and create the best possible climate for gains in the field. On another note, I found that your depiction of what NOT to do to help a stutterer ("enabling" or over-helpfulness) made me wish to know more on that topic...for instance, although you go into some detail about reactions on the part of the non-stuttering public that are negative and hurtful to PWS (ignoring/denying, etc.), I wish you'd said more about what people can do, in casual, everyday situations, when they meet and speak with a PWS. Far from being a "conspiracy of silence," I think perhaps the truth behind many people's awkwardness with PWS lies somewhere closer to their awkwardness with people who have ANY kind of perceived disability...it's simply that we, the non-stuttering public, are ignorant of what would be the RIGHT or truly helpful thing to do or say, and so we do nothing at all, which ends up being hurtful. What advice would you give the general public about helpful, healthy ways to interact with PWS? Gretchen Hess


Last changed: 10/23/06