Different reactions during conversation
Hi! My name is Julianna Arellano and I’m a senior at CSUF studying speech-language pathology. I am interested in knowing if you have gotten a negative reaction to your stutter from someone you were speaking to? If this has happened to you, how was that experience and how did you handle the situation? I would like to think that everyone is accepting and patient with PWS but that might not always be the case. I look forward to your response, and hopefully a positive one!
Hi Julianna
Thanks for your question. Most of the people I meet are patient and friendly, but unfortunately not everyone is. Sometimes people laugh, some because they are so surprised they don’t know what else to do, and a few because they actually think stuttering is funny. Remember that the media still projects us as funny, weird, less intelligent and even criminals, and there are still so many misconceptions.
We also meet people who try to “help”. They interrupt, fill in our words, look away etc, and we get “advice” like “take a deep breath”, “you don’t have to be nervous” and “there’s this therapy that cures you in two days”. Very nice, but not helping. Worse, it might silence us, as you take away our words and show you’re more focused on how we speak than what we’re saying.
There are countries where stuttering is so wrong, people are not allowed to get married or are hit in school. I also heard about one country where stuttering is totally ok, so there is no therapy available!
In short, more and more people understand they simply need to treat us like any other person and just give us a little more time. But as long as not everyone understands, we need to keep talking and explain how we want to be treated, what is helping and what not. To do that, we need to work on shame and to make stuttering visible in society.
Happy ISAD and keep helping us talk
Anita