Question for a PWS
Hello, our names are Marissa and Megan and we are graduate students studying speech-language pathology. We have heard stories of the general population, family members, and even some individuals who stutter themselves who believe stuttering is a problem that needs to be fixed. We would love to be able to advocate for PWS and normalize stuttering in our society. How would you recommend initiating a conversation to educate individuals who believe someone who stutters needs to go to speech therapy to “fix” their stutter?
The $100 million question!
As you surely know, narratives like overcoming and care are deeply embedded in our culture, which for many years has medicalised many kinds of differences. For example, I remember a campaign in which Whoopy Goldberg claimed to have cured her dyslexia through “hard work”.
This is why I think a first conversation should be about normality and diversity. Normality is not a biological concept but a statistical concept, to which is then attached a cultural value.
If, on the other hand, we see normality as something natural, everything else will always be seen as abnormal and therefore as something to be eliminated (i.e. cure or overcome).
What a great question!
Ask people if they would tell a person in a wheelchair to “just stand up, and put one foot in front of the other, as we’ve done that for years and know it works”. Or to tell a person who’s blind to “just open your eyes, open the book and just read”. Or take the cutlery from a person with CP and start cutting their food and feeding them, without even asking them.
As Andrea wrote, why the need to “fix” people, instead of ackowledging diversity. This is one of the greatest problems today in all (social) media, in beauty pagents, in fashion, or even in dog shows. Someone thinks we should be in a certain way, and suddenly you’re “out” when you’re the slightest different. Why not look at diversity as a motor show, where exentric cars and motorcycles are being applauded. We think the paralympics are amazing, as people are doing things that are even hard to us, who don’t have a disability, and yet they are doing it anyway. Well, guess what. PWS are doing the paralympics every day, so let’s cheer them as well. 😉
And what if everyone became a laywer and noone came to get the garbage. And why is a new animal specie all over the news? What I’m trying to say is: Try and make people understand the absurdness of trying to put all people in a template, when it’s diversity that makes the world a wonderful planet to live on.
Keep them talking
Anita