Here’s what we at STAMMA are up to over ISAD:-

At STAMMA we’ve refined our mission to focus on ‘creating space for people who stammer’, and our message ‘it’s how we talk’.  This work has led us to converge on practically examining HOW we make space for stammering.

This summer we took one simple thread  – making a doctor’s appointment.  A necessity that everyone can understand.  We invited people who stammer to contact us about their experiences and used these to create a briefing on what needs to change. And will now lobby those in power to achieve that change.

For ISAD we’ll expand this campaign to focus on the problems people face in accessing goods and services generally.  And work with organisations to look at how they can ensure their service are accessible, whether that’s adding other means of contact, training staff or amending procedures.  So that it becomes natural for every organisation to consider the needs of people who stammer, alongside those with other physical or neurological differences.

Not everyone will experience the same difficulties when accessing goods and services.  However, the baseline should be that everyone supplying goods or services must consider the needs of those who stammer in designing and providing access to their products or services.