About the Author:  Ridwana Miah is a stutterer and a paralegal. She is currently volunteering at the Canadian Stuttering Association, believing that the Canadian stuttering community needs more people to join and let their voices be heard due to how rarely stutterers get visibility because of the invisible nature of the disorder. Through writing, she shares her stories and experiences, offering insights into the challenges and triumphs of living with a stutter. She hopes that her writing makes an impact on others who are looking for support and visibility. This platform allows her to advocate for greater awareness and understanding of stuttering and to encourage others in the community to speak out and be heard. Ridwana believes that people who stutter are their best advocates because they are equipped with lived experiences, which allow them to promote and bring awareness to the broader public.

To talk is to be heard but most importantly it is to be fully listened to. 

Stuttering, also known as stammering, is a speech disfluency, which is characterized by repetition of sounds, syllables, or words; prolongation of sounds and interruption of speech produced by constant blocks (NIDCD, 2017). An estimated 80 million people worldwide, which is about 1% of the population have a stutter.

Stuttering is often misunderstood by those who listen to individuals who stutter. Listeners may mistakenly interpret stuttering as a sign that the speaker is nervous, unsure, or unprepared. However, a person with a stutter typically knows exactly what they want to say, the challenge lies in producing fluent speech. Stuttering not only makes it difficult to communicate with others but it impacts their interpersonal relationships and quality of life. 

What exacerbates the situation is the response from the listener.  When a listener is impatient, dismissive, or uninterested, it creates a stressful environment for the person who stutters. This can lead to increased anxiety, which often worsens the stuttering, creating a vicious cycle of disfluency and frustration (O’Malia, 2021). Listeners may knowingly or unknowingly display negative emotions or attribute stereotypes on people who stutter, such as questioning their intellectual abilities, which further diminishes the speaker’s confidence and willingness to engage in conversations.

Likewise, when listeners are patient, attentive and supportive, it can have a profound positive effect on the speaker. Knowing that the listener is willing to take the time to hear them out is what reduces the speaker’s anxiety and makes it easier for them to express themselves (O’Malia, 2021). This highlights the crucial role that listeners play in either exacerbates or alleviating the challenges faced by people who stutter 

Listening to people who stutter (PWS) has a direct correlation with how it is perceived and treated differently across various cultures. Cultural attitudes significantly influence how PWS are listened to and understood within their communities (Haryani et als., 2020). While some communities approach stuttering with a positive outlook and empathy, and with a focus on inclusivity, in the contexts of the South Asian community, they may harbor negative viewpoints that marginalizes and silences PWS (Haryani et als., 2020). In the South Asian community, there are several reasons why listening to people who stutter might be treated differently, which can be due to deep rooted misconceptions, and why it becomes challenging for PWS to be fully understood and heard. This article explores the cultural perspective on stuttering, with a particular focus on the challenges faced in South Asian communities where listening to PWS is often compromised by misunderstanding and preconception.

Cultural Norms, Stigma and Perfectionism

South Asian communities often have deep rooted cultural norms that emphasize perfectionism, particularly in areas like education, social status and most importantly physical appearances. Therefore, the surmountable value of perfectionism leaves little room for acknowledging disabilities, including speech disabilities like stuttering. A culture that has an unwritten rule book on how to sit, how to walk, how to speak, how to look, how to laugh and how to carry yourself, does not make space for disabilities as it puts them at unease on how to work with that in terms of perfectionism. Disabilities are viewed from the lens of cultural stigma, it is usually societal expectations that value physical and intellectual perfectionism. A person with any form of disability is looked down upon as they are perceived to be weak and abnormal, and they are bound to bring shame upon their families. The belief that disability brings shame to the family, derives from the Chinese culture, the concept of “loss of face” which occurs when certain events disrupts the harmony with nature and other people (Haryani et als., 2020), personal psychological well-being and social orders are threatened when certain behaviors and disorder impede that harmony. The concept has a direct relevance to stuttering and therefore, in the South Asian community, to “save face” families will go to the lengths of hiding and downplaying the stutter rather than accepting and addressing them openly. Parents become reluctant to address it in order to maintain the family honor and to avoid bringing any shame. This results in parents and family members not fully listening to the stutterer, ignoring them but in return demanding; “talk normally” “slow down, we have time to hear you out just slow down” “start back on what you were saying but this time say it slowly”. There are also non-verbal cues which indicate that there is no interest in listening to the stutterer such as body language which gives off disinterest, looking away during a stuttering moment, gestures of “move it along, filling in words and cutting them off by completing. These forms of microaggressions are not only there to suppress the issue but to suppress the stutterer’s voice, but also push the stutterer to establish normalcy and perfection. 

In the mission of “fixing” the stutterer based on South Asian norms, it creates friction between the listener and the person who stutters. For that reason, stutterers who grow up in a South Asian community tend to avoid partaking in conversations, or expressing themselves fully in the fear of the scrutiny that they or their family might face. With the idea of perfection embedded into them, stutterers make sure to hide their stutter in front of outsiders for the sake of it not becoming a topic of conversation within the community. South Asian communities have the tendency to make insensitive commentaries and assumptions about those with disabilities, this also comes from the lack of awareness or simple misconceptions that are culturally embedded. Even though there are many who are ready to hear out a stutterer and educate themselves about stuttering, unfortunately, the majority of them are not willing to do so as they believe stuttering can simply be cured if they simply tried to speak fluently. 

The negative stereotypes, assumptions and regards towards stuttering, stops the listener from listening as they are not capable of looking and listen to a stutterer in an empathetic manner, they are not able to look at them past their disabilities and as they believe that they are the embodiment of that disabilities. With the pressure of perfectionism, there is no space in the South Asian community for a stutterer to speak up and have hope that they will be fully listened to and understood.

Overcompensation

In a conversation about disability within a family, which starts off as sympathetic discussion can sometimes devolve into pity and condescension. Parents, often driven by concerns and cultural pressures, may find themselves over-explaining their child’s stutter, detailing its development and causes in an attempt to normalize it or defend their child’s capabilities. These behaviors stem from a deep-seated shame or embarrassment, which are driven by societal expectations and the perception towards disabilities.

Instead of accepting their child’s stutter as a natural variation in speech, something that may be seen as a simple part of their fate or a plan by the universe – these parents unconsciously attempt to compensate. A culture that values flawless communication, parents find themselves offering lengthy, redundant explanations in social settings, trying to make the stutter seem as “normal”. This approach can unwittingly send a message that stuttering is something to be apologized for or explained away, rather than simply accepted. The conversation may shift from understanding and supporting, to a subtle cry for validation or acceptance from others. In doing so, parents miss the opportunity of intently listening to their child and accepting them as they are, without the need for overcompensation or excess . justification.

This reflects South Asian communities attitudes towards disabilities and the pressure to conform to ideals of normalcy. While the parents overcompensation becomes a way to navigate these pressures, it can also undermine the child’s confidence and the family’s ability to engage in more meaningful and supportive conversation. South Asian parents tend to overcompensate because of the treatment that others children with disabilities face within the community. 

From personal experience, when my parents begin to overcompensate and go into detailed explanations to family members, neighbors or friends about why I stutter, it brings up feelings of unease and frustration. They often highlight that I “had normal fluency till the age of two, but her head injury is where the stuttering started”. While I understand that their intention may be to provide context or protect me from the judgment of the community, these explanations make me annoyed as to why my disfluency necessarily needs to be overexplained in order for a few validation.

This overcompensation ends up feeling like they are attempting to justify or rationalize my stutter, while I have clearly told them that listen to me when I say that I am not a piece of artifact that needs to be given an explanation on just to be accepted by others and listened to by others. It also simply implies that my stutter is something abnormal or shameful that requires an excuse, rather than being accepted as just another aspect of who I am. This kind of explanation not only diminishes my own sense of self-acceptance but also creates a barrier to more meaningful, supportive interactions. Instead of simply listening and being present with me, the focus shifts to explaining and defending my stutter, which diminishes my true-self

Conclusion

We begin to compromise a lot of our authenticity when we feel we are not listened to, striving to make our speech “correct” or “fluent” to fit into what is considered as “normal and acceptable” by others. For a person who stutters, especially within the South Asian community, this challenge is amplified by the community’s often rigid preconception and ideals of perfectionism.

The hope that people from these communities will listen and educate themselves about stuttering and thus help destigmatize it, can feel out of reach because of the existing negative perception are deeply entrenched. However, if the South Asian community were to take the initiative to listen intently to those who stutter, it would be a significant step towards not only destigmatizing stuttering but also other disabilities. This change would help create an environment where parents of children with disabilities can participate in these conversations without the burden of shame and guilt. 

As the famous Morticia Addams said “Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”, underscores this idea. It reminds that what seems abnormal and undesirable in one contact is simply the norm for another. For those who stutter, it is part of their normal. It is important to embrace this reality and create a space where everyone’s “normal” is respected, rather than forcing conformity to a single standard. With that in mind, people who stutter will get a chance to be fully heard and it gives them space to make meaningful conversations.

Bibliography

Haryani, H. et als. (2020, September 22). Public Attitudes in Asia Toward Stuttering: A Scoping Review. The Open Public Health Journal.

NIDCD. (2017, March). Stuttering. National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/stuttering 

O’Malia, M. (2021, March 15). Microaggressions in the lived experience of stuttering. AIS. https://www.stutteringtreatment.org/blog/microaggressions-and-stuttering