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From: Ken St. Louis
Date: 09 Oct 2006
Time: 09:06:06 -0500
Remote Name: 157.182.15.42
Dear Laura Thanks for the question, "Besides education about stuttering, how can those associated with the stuttering community help to change the negative beliefs about stuttering and still respect each person's choice of how he or she would like to address stuttering?" Seems to me you have two questions here, "How can we change negative beliefs?" and "How can we respect a person's choice of how he/she would like to be addressed?" Relative to the first one, there are a number of things that could happen. I suspect that one of the most effective approaches to change public attitudes is for people who stutter to speak about stuttering at every opportunity. This is exactly what people like Alan Badmington and Russ Hicks do frequently. Another strategy is what the Stuttering Foundation of America does, i.e., make information available to the public. For example, the SFA will send any of its materials to any public library gratis if they will but send a formal request. A third strategy is for people who don't stutter, like you, to begin to talk about stuttering with your friends, families, and colleagues at every opportunity and let them know the facts about stuttering, especially that stutterers are not necessarily shy, introverted, nervous, and the like. Your second question really is the topic of my paper. My answer is to use the word "stutterer" openly and freely and not make any apologies for it. In my opinion, when we ask how a person wants to be addressed, we are suggesting there is a good and not-so-good way to do it. I don't buy that in this case. I hope this helps. Ken