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From: Ken St. Louis
Date: 18 Oct 2006
Time: 09:50:50 -0500
Remote Name: 157.182.15.42
Tara, You are really asking two questions, one relating to labeling and the other relating to desensitizing. I'll comment mostly about the first one. Relative to how to label teenagers who stutter, I think it is important to reduce the negative associations with the word stuttering. I believe they will be empowered when they can learn to say and accept the fact that they stutter. (See the post above by Veronica.) Personally, I use the term "stutterer." That may evoke more negative emotion than "person who stutters," but I have found that when people dispense with euphemisms and learn to confront the unmentionable or uncomfortable, they usually discover it's not nearly as bad as they thought. This way they become desensitized to the term and can then reduce the tendency to struggle and avoid by simply announcing, "I stutter." I hope this helps. Ken