About the Author: Zeb White, M.S., CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist and founder of Austin Stuttering & Communication Therapy, a private practice serving adults who stutter across Texas. His work is shaped by years of clinical experience with people who stutter and by research examining their experiences, including self-disclosure. Zeb has published research in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. His clinical interests include self-disclosure, avoidance, counseling, self-advocacy, and helping people who stutter develop approaches to communication that feel personally meaningful.

Partway through a professional talk, one participant hit a long block. It lasted long enough that a woman in the audience leaned forward, concerned, and asked if he was okay, if something was wrong. Nothing was wrong. He was stuttering. When he told me about it later, he said that was the moment he realized he wanted a different opening line next time, one that told people what was actually happening before they had to guess.

That story is one of many I heard while interviewing adults who stutter about self-disclosure—when they told people they stuttered, why they chose to, how it landed, and how their approach changed over time. Those conversations became the basis of a study that eventually took shape as Self-Disclosure Experiences of Adults Who Stutter: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Young et al., 2022). They also stayed with me after the study ended. In the years since, versions of that realization have surfaced again and again in my clinical work.

At the time, I was an early-career speech-language pathologist, and I already believed disclosure could be valuable. The interviews did not change my mind so much as deepen my understanding. Listening to people describe disclosure in their own lives made it feel much more complicated and personal than it had seemed as a clinical concept on a page.

I’m writing from the perspective of a speech-language pathologist who does not stutter. I’ve never had to decide whether to tell a coworker, a date, a teacher, an interviewer, or a stranger that I do. My role in those interviews was to ask questions, listen, and help make sense of what participants shared. I can’t describe what disclosure feels like from lived experience. What I can describe is how listening closely to people who stutter changed the way I think about it.

One question has stayed with me since: Who is disclosure for?

Much of the earlier research on stuttering disclosure approached it from the listener’s side: Does disclosure change how listeners perceive a person who stutters? It’s a legitimate question, because stigma and listener reactions matter. Our study asked a different question: What is disclosure like for the person who stutters? Four themes emerged: cognitive relief, self-empowerment, social connection, and personalization. The first three are compelling. Personalization is the one I keep coming back to.

Clinicians are trained to value evidence-based practice, but it can be an easy step from “research suggests this may help” to “this is what you should do.” Disclosure can start to look almost procedural: build a script, rehearse it, then use it in the real world. For someone who wants to disclose but feels anxious about it, that structure may be exactly what helps. But more than one person I talked to described an initial reaction closer to disbelief: You want me to tell people I stutter, after I’ve spent this long hiding it? Hearing reactions like that reminded me that disclosure is not just a technique. It is also a deeply personal choice.

There is no universal script. Several participants used the phrase “coming out” to describe it, not just informing someone but owning something out loud. One person may be direct; another may mention it in passing. One participant told me that his decision often depended on whether he expected to keep talking to the person. A brief exchange with someone he would never see again might not feel worth it. If he expected to speak with someone again, disclosure often did feel worthwhile, not because he owed anyone an explanation but because it could make future interactions easier.

That variability is why this year’s ISAD theme, “Shades of Stuttering—What’s Yours?” felt like the right theme to write toward. There are shades of disclosure, too, and their value isn’t found in a particular set of words or the “right” moment. It is in whether the choice feels like the person’s own.

I have also become less comfortable thinking of disclosure as the top rung of a therapeutic ladder, the confident version of managing stuttering that someone eventually works up to. Hierarchies can be useful, especially for gradually approaching situations someone has come to fear or avoid. But once disclosure becomes an endpoint that signals confidence or acceptance, it can start to feel like an obligation. Someone who does not want to disclose may then seem as though they are avoiding something or simply are not ready yet. I don’t think that is always a fair conclusion.

I think of it differently now: disclosure as an option on a menu, not a rung on a ladder. Some people use it frequently. Others use it selectively, or try it and decide it isn’t right for that situation or that day. Having the option available does not mean someone has to use it.

Which brings me back to the question: Who is disclosure for? If one of our strongest arguments for teaching disclosure is that listeners tend to respond better afterward, it is worth considering what responsibility that places on the speaker. Are we asking someone to explain themselves so a listener feels less uncertain? Are we measuring success largely by someone else’s reaction?

Listener response isn’t irrelevant. Disclosure can reduce confusion, build understanding, and create connection. But the interviews pushed me to keep the speaker at the center of the question. Did disclosure lighten the mental load of the interaction? Did it give someone more ownership of what was happening? Did it help them connect with another person? Did they actually want to disclose in that moment at all?

None of this means clinicians should sit back and never encourage or challenge. Person-centered care does not mean passive care. Someone might genuinely want to try disclosing but feel afraid. A clinician can help by introducing the evidence, brainstorming possibilities, practicing, and encouraging someone to experiment if they want to. To me, the important distinction is between helping someone explore a choice and deciding, on their behalf, what their relationship with stuttering needs to look like.

That is probably what personalization has taught me most. It isn’t a small adjustment made after someone learns the “correct” way to disclose. It is the whole process. The words, the timing, the purpose, and even the choice of whether to disclose at all—those belong to the person who stutters.

One participant in our study described what disclosure had done for him in a way I still think about. He said it changed his life—that for years he had felt like a passenger in a car he was making the payments on, and now he was finally the one driving.

I don’t think disclosure works that way for everyone, and it shouldn’t have to. But whatever shade it takes—direct or subtle, frequent or rare, or even choosing not to disclose—it only means something if it’s the person’s own hand on the wheel.

 

Reference

Young, M. M., Byrd, C. T., Gabel, R., & White, A. Z. (2022). Self-disclosure experiences of adults who stutter: An interpretative phenomenological analysis. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 31(5), 2045–2060. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_AJSLP-22-00048