Stuttering
Hi, My name is Nikki. I stutter and guess what? I Write, yes I do, and am good at it. And I-I-I-I don’t stutter in my writings.
Is stuttering a disability? In most cases, stuttering or stammering will be a disability. A disability is an impairment that significantly impacts a major life activity. The ADA includes “speaking” and “communication” as a major life activities. So, if the stutter significantly affects one’s ability to communicate, it will be a disability. Even so to call stuttering a disability can provoke a strong negative reaction to people who stutter.
You may ask yourself what causes someone to stutter, well, brain injuries from a stroke can cause neurogenic stuttering. Severe emotional trauma can cause psychogenic stuttering. Stuttering may run in families because of an inherited abnormality in the part of the brain that governs language. If you or your parents stuttered, your children may also stutter.
I have argued with a lot of people who claim there is a cure for stuttering. There is no known cure for stuttering, though many treatment approaches have proven successful for helping speakers reduce the number of disfluencies in their speech.
However, from a personal experience, I will tell you this, I do stutter, and I can manage it as much as I can. I don’t feel less of myself neither should anyone do, just like in any activity that you do, you have to be tactful.
If your experience as a stutterer is anything like mine, you’ve spent a good part of your life listening to suggestions, such as “relax, think what you have to say, have confidence, take a deep breath,” or even to “talk with pebbles in your mouth.” And by now, you’ve found that these things don’t help; if anything, they make you worse.
There’s a good reason why these legendary remedies fail, because they all means suppressing your stuttering, covering up, doing something artificial. And the more you cover up and try to avoid stuttering, the more you will stutter.
However, you do have a choice as to how you stutter. Many stutterers have learned as I have learned, that it is possible to stutter easily and with little struggle and tension. The most important key in learning how to do this is openness, being yourself, not struggling and fighting against each block and looking your listener calmly in the eye, never giving up in a speech attempt once started, never avoiding words or ducking out situations, taking the initiative in speaking even when doing a lot of stuttering. All these are fundamental in any successful recovery from stuttering.
For most of us, feeling different from others is uncomfortable. We react to the perplexed looks, reactions, and the imagined or real scorn of others with feelings of frustration, embarrassment, and shame.
Things to focus at as a stutterer basically are resisting any feeling of hurry or pressure and capitalize on all your personal assets, your skills and talents. Put all your efforts on your strengths, make use of them and you will be just fine. Its just a stammer, people have worse disabilities. :)
