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From: Peter Reitzes
Date: 12 Oct 2006
Time: 11:50:58 -0500
Remote Name: 165.155.216.149
Ken, your paper is absolutely wonderful. Thank you or continuing to tackle these issues. You write, “As a closing thought, I share with others profound sadness that the term ‘stutterer’ has become or may becoming a bad word.” Unfortunately, you are correct. I want to share with you a vivid example. I was recently speaking to a professor, who I respect, who is teaching a “fluency” course. I asked the professor why the course was titled “Fluency” instead of “Stuttering.” I was expecting to hear an answer such as, “I cover all of the fluency disorders such as stuttering, clutters, neurogenic stuttering, …” Instead, the professor answered, “Stuttering is a bad word.” I was shocked and saddened by this comment. My feeling is that this professor is truly attempting to do her best to teach graduate students about stuttering and that she is unfortunately viewing the term “stuttering” as many others in our field do. Now that I am teaching graduate students, I start every class with a powerpoint slide that has the word “Fluency” crossed out with the word “Stuttering” next to it. The very first topic of my graduate class this year was this slide and why I was personally calling the class “Stuttering” even though the school lists it as “Fluency.” I truly hope that as a field we start to reclaim the word stuttering. Peter