Bullying Question
Hey there! I am interested in learning more about stuttering. I am currently working towards a degree in Speech Language Pathology, and will hopefully work with people who stutter in the future. A question that’s been on my mind is what can I do as a future Speech Language Pathologist to educate others on stuttering and prevent bullying in school? Did anyone who stutters now or stuttered in school have anyone come talk to the class about stuttering? What did you think was helpful or harmful? Did anyone ever have someone step in when they were getting bullied because of their stutter? If I end up working in the schools, I was thinking it would be useful to go into classrooms and educate everyone on stuttering, with emphasis on ways to make communication environments easier/safer for PWS. Any thoughts/insight on this? Thanks a bunch for your time! 🙂Â
You ask some good questions. First, several posts have touched on this and I would recommend reading some of the interactions below. There are numerous resources in place to help children and adults manage bullying. The Stuttering Foundation of American, the National Stuttering Association, many international support groups, Friends, SAY, and published authors like Scott Yaruss. The public is in great need of education about stuttering! Thank you for making that part of your passion!
Hi! I love your questions, and congrats on your studying! Yes, there are several questions in this forum already on bullying and addressing bullying but I love your specific questions on “what was harmful/helpful.” I will share my thoughts on this, as Rita shared some great resources- check those websites out!
Regarding what is harmful and helpful and doing classroom presentations. We should not force a child to do a classroom presentation in speech therapy. This is a big deal- and a child needs to be emotionally ready for this It is a great activity to do for awareness of classroom peers, education of the general public, and is with a big heart in an effort to reduce the child’s chances of getting bullied. However, this task can also traumatize a child if the child is not ready, or does not want to do it. Involve the child in the goals of therapy, just like you involve the parent (ages 6 and up or so) via a conference involving the child and the parent. Talk about tasks the child may want to do in therapy within the child’s comfort zone. Just because the child educating his or her class sounds great- doesn’t mean the child has a duty to do so. The child may LOVE the idea, I have had several that have loved the idea- but I have also had several that don’t love the idea and aren’t ready. Stuttering can look pretty “neato”, “cool” and “unique” to a child’s peers when the child who stutters does a class presentation on stuttering. This is a great opportunity for the child to shine- when ready to, IF ready to- IF ever ready to. 🙂 This can be a harmful task if the child is forced to. Just as if you were forced to do anything, this child is a human as you were when you were a child, and being forced to do anything can be traumatic- times that by ten then add stuttering to it- we can’t imagine that if we don’t stutter, can we? You get the picture. So, this therapy activity/task can be very successful or very unsuccessful. I hope that helps to answer your question a bit further. Stuttering therapy can be such a positive and fun experience! Stuttering is my favorite area to treat, and children who stutter are so fun to treat in the therapy room- adults are great as well! We are humans, we connect with other humans, and wow can we do life together. You’ve got this. You are already doing so well by asking a question in this forum- to me, that already shows a level of empathy. Be well!