Personal Narrative: The Adversity Of Stuttering

This documentary focuses on the journey of seven different individuals who are considered people who stutter. I believe it is important to note the statistics of the prevalence of stuttering mentioned in the video. The statistic states that 1 out of 100 adult and 5 out of 100 children are people who stutter. This prevalence is important for speech therapists to become informed and equipped to treat this population. This documentary gives great insight on the struggles and successes of this population.

The main purpose of this article is to examine various research on the etiology of stuttering. The experimental research explored various brain circuitries involved, specifically the the basal ganglia. Furthermore, the meta-analysis discussed neuroimaging, lesion, pharmacological, and genetic studies on the neural circuitries connected to persistent developmental stuttering and acquired neurogenic stuttering.

Barry Yeoman in “Wrestling Words”, expresses the struggles of how stuttering becomes a setback in life. Stuttering may seem like an easy disability to overcome,but for those who struggle know the true devastating pain. Not being able to fit the cookie cutter perfect imagine of society not just physically,but also emotionally impacts stutters. Stuttering seems incurable,but organizations like the National Stuttering Project believe an end is reachable. Stuttering is not a life threatening disease,but a setback to thrive on.

One person, a young teen guy, even mocked me. I tried not to let it go too deeply under my skin. I had to keep reminding myself that this was just temporary, just for the assignment. I definitely can’t imagine what those who have or have had a stutter for the majority of their lives go through. Just one short experience of having to stutter made me feel so small. I can’t even begin to fathom how people with an actual stutter feel about themselves, especially when people treat them so cruelly for something that they can’t help. Overall, stuttering made me feel slower and more self-conscious. I felt like I was being judged solely on the stutter and nothing else. I felt as though all the eyes in the food court were on me, even though they weren’t. I felt slower in the sense that it took me longer to say what I wanted and for some reason, I had to deliberate more as to how I would say what I wanted to. When we watched the kids stuttering during the lecture last week and describing how they felt, I could sympathize with them. After having to experience stuttering first hand, I would definitely say that I developed empathy for them and anyone else with a

I actually loved speech therapy because it finally helped me with talking. I would stutter when I was nervous, scared, or excited. The excitement part was the worst, because I just had so many things I wanted to say but I couldn’t get them out. I used to get so frustrated because people would always try to finish my sentences and I felt like no one understood what I was saying. My stutter impacted my schooling too.

After 60 years of stuttering, Hoagland reminisces about his struggles and triumphs to overcome his stuttering. While attending school, he learned that, “Life can become a matter of measuring the importance of anything you have to say.” He felt that it was

1. Mr. J’s, work on the problems of stuttering which falls under the nature of factual scholarly work. The book seems to address the subject of stuttering which is a type of speech disorder thus his work should be categorized as a non fictional research work. Mr. J work can thus be broadly categorized under the fair use guidelines as experts who work on the subject of stuttering can apply the knowledge and knowhow to positively improve speech patterns in patients with such speech disorder.

Emily Blunt is just one of many famous individuals who has been publicly open about their own personal stuttering problems; a problem that the star had struggled with from the age of 7 to 14. When recalling this event from her childhood, the actress remembers particularly having trouble with her vowels especially at the beginning of words (NPR). However, she was able to solve this problem after her elementary school teacher realized that she spoke fluently whenever she did accents and impressions. After this discovery, Blunt started to participate in theatre and eventually overcame her stuttering problem. She says that if it weren’t for her childhood stutter, she never would have pursued a career in acting. Since then she has been recognized by the American Institute for Stuttering and was given their Freeing Voices award, an award given to people who have achieved professional success in spite of their stuttering (Stuttering

Daniels stated that “quality of life was negatively impacted by [the client’s] self-defeating thoughts and feelings about speaking and difficulty regulating social interaction” (p. 95). It demonstrated that speech and stuttering modifications alone are not enough to facilitate successful treatment outcomes. Broad based treatment approaches work the best in treating the whole child, not just the stutter. SLPs should learn to adopt broad based treatment approaches when implementing stuttering intervention in order to improve quality of

The following is a summary of a journal article titled, “Is Parent -Child Interaction Therapy Effective in Reducing Stuttering?” by Sharon Millard, Alison Nicholas, and Frances Cook. This article was published in the Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research in June 2008, to report the findings of a research conducted on the effects of parent-child interaction therapy approach (PCIT) on children who stutter. It was conducted to add more research and evidence to the efficacy of using the PCIT approach (Millard, Nicholas, & Cook, 2008 p 636).

Turning the gun in your hand, you note how it reflects in the soft glowing lamplight. Dark and blued steel with a dull satin sheen; cold, heavy, dangerous.

I entered the field with an interest in fluency and participated in the National Stuttering Association in Queens, New York. The stutter started in my teens and faded away in my early adulthood.  I researched speech language pathology and came upon all the different aspects of this field since the definition of speech pathology is broad. I knew I wanted to specialize in stuttering when I was a teenager. This changed when I was in the Communication Sciences and Disorders program in my undergrad. This program exposed me to different classes and observations of communication disorders in a variety of age ranges. This exposed me to adult population as well in which I gained an interest because of their lack of tantrums and willingness to gain back

Throughout the modern era stuttering has caused many individuals to reshape the way they act or think. For people affected by stuttering, alterations are real and hard to overcome. Much of the world is based on first impressions; the way one acts and converses is an essential building block in relationships, and it helps one to establish an identity for themselves and others to perceive. With stuttering comes several downturns that affect the mind, body, and the way one is perceived. Researchers have noted many effects of stuttering besides those that are physical, and by understanding the causes of stuttering, researchers may find a cure for these individuals.

In a very interesting ted talk (2016), “Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent.” by Safwat Saleem describing his mother tongue problem and how it affects him because he felt that he was not normal. Saleem had problems with stutter when he was a child, thankfully overtime, he managed to overcome

As we reach the end of the school year, you know quite well that I have a speech impediment. I have stuttered for as long as I can remember, and it has had a tremendous impact on my life. At the surface, it felt like it had a largely negative impact, but I have managed to learned a great deal from my impediment. I’m sure you are no stranger to stutterers, so as you can imagine Public Speaking is not exactly the easiest class and can seem quite daunting, especially on off days. Fear and stress are major factors in how much I stutter, but of course you already know this because I’m not your first student who stutters and I won’t be your last. I will still attempt to offer insight into how my stuttering shaped my everyday speaking in general, as well as what class was like for me and what helped or didn’t help.