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From: Gunars K. Neiders
Date: 10/10/01
Time: 11:55:09 AM
Remote Name: 206.63.38.63
Catherine,
I am filing this article for easy reference to whenever the discussion turns to other people's attitudes about stuttering/stutterers. I learned a lot about the work previously done, as well about what you did. It was also an enjoyable read. :-) Made me think. Which brought about a lot of questions. :-)
Just a few :-) questions for you to ponder which I think could be researched in the future. I would like you to give me a "gut feel" answer to as many of these that you can. By this I mean, can you give me your opinions even if they are not based on research.
1) Does more information about stuttering correlate with positive or negative image?
2) How would each of the students define stuttering? I have found out that a) controlled stuttering or b) low level of stuttering in me or others is not perceived as stuttering. There is some, as yet undefined level of stuttering, which is not called stuttering by the general public.
3) Did you define stuttering in your study?
4) Did you define "stutterer" or "Person Who Stutters" in your study? How did you define it?
5) I return to the non black and white thinking about stuttering. Yes, there are extreme instances of stuttering. I have "been there, done that", but were the subjects aware that stuttering comes in many shades overt and covert, and a veritable :-) rainbow mixture of the two. For example, a person may have a lot of struggling in his speech and a lot of avoidances with a lousy :-) set of attitudes about his speech and extreme emotional feelings of guilt, shame and anxiety. But another one may have only a little struggling and a moderate amount of avoidances and little feelings of anxiety, guilt and shame.
6) Did you ask the question of what they thought the therapy can do for the person in terms of his speech dysfluencies versus the character traits. Here I am driving at your quote: "They view stutterers as shy, withdrawn and less adequate than fluent speakers." To put it bluntly: Did the subjects of the study think that therapy could help the stutterer be less shy, less withdrawn and less "adequate".
7) How do you use the term adequate? How does it differ from competent?
8) Did the subjects of the study know what is going on at the stuttering moment? That is, do they know that as the speaker is speaking he also if has both affect (emotions) and cognitions (attitudes & beliefs) about his stuttering? (Cooper's Affect, Behavior, and Cognitions)
9) Following up on that question do you think that they would call a disfluent instance in a normal person as stuttering?
10) Did you investigate how the subjects arrived at their judgment of "They view stutterers as shy, withdrawn and less adequate than fluent speakers" opinion? From personal relationship with a stutterer? From casual observation of a number of stutterers? From media portrayal? From reading? If reading, what did they read?
11) In quantum mechanics we know that the act of observation influences what is observed. In other words asking Socratic questions in a specific order would influence how the questionnaire is answered. When forming your questions did you try to avoid educating the poor blokes :-)? In the political polls around United States, even how the question is asked, as well as the sequence of questions asked have proven to influence the attitude. For example: a) Wasn't it awful what happened in New York trade center? b) How do you think the families of the victims feel? c) In this instance, would racial profiling have helped to wean out the hijackers? And then d) Do you think we should have racial profiling at airports to improve security? would frequently lead to different answer than: a) How important do you think maintaining our the pillar of Constitution "innocent until found guilty" is to American way of life? And then d) Do you think we should have racial profiling at airports to improve security?
Your answering of any of the questions would be highly appreciated.
Gunars