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From: Chris Roach
Date: 10/14/01
Time: 6:31:47 AM
Remote Name: 152.163.197.49
Tracy, good question about severity. As a covert stutterer, my stuttering ranged from mild to very severe, all depending on the words to pronounce, the speaking conditions, stress, fatigue, etc. -- the same factors that impact any stutterer, overt and covert.
What is frustrating is that whereas many overt stutterers' degree of severity is consistently the same (again, ranging from mild to severe), my was inconsistent. When a fellow stutterer sees me speak very fluently or only stutter mildly, they may think I have no idea what it's like to stutter severely. When a fluent individual sees me stutter severely, they may perceive me as a very severe stutterer, unable to speak well ever!
We have our speaking feet in both worlds. So odd is our ability not only to sporadically and without rhyme or reason speak fluently for long periods, then stutter for long periods, but our severity range does the same. This was the theme of our NSA Conference workshop this year in Boston - "Where do I belong?"
Because we aren't neatly "categorized or diagnosed" into a consistent stuttering role AND because the listener observes us in so many contradictory patterns of fluency/disfluency, the reactions we receive tend to leak over into the "something ELSE must be wrong with that person" category. Thus, the instinct to become covert -- by keeping this oddity a secret, we avoid that perception of abnormalcy -- from BOTH the fluent world and the stuttering world.
Crazy, huh? Thanks again for a great question. Good luck with your own journey of education into this fascinating topic.
Chris