Why Society Shouldn’t Make People Hide Their Stuttering?
They live in constant fear of social stigma
“There is no ‘recovering’ from stuttering. There’s no pill, no surgery, no way to get rid of a stutter... but there is recovery from the shame and self-hatred that stem from stuttering.”(Sophia Stewart, readersdigest.in)
Stuttering is a vocal disfluency that occurs across a spectrum, ranging from mild to severe. It hasn’t received the attention it deserves in the disability discourse. Sophia Stewart says there has been “a glaring omission of speech and vocal impairments from disability scholarship as a whole.”
Stutterers are often forced to hide their disability because they fear society’s disapproval, shaming, and ostracism.
They are called ‘covert stutterers.’
Covert stutterers manage to hide their ability through word substitution and circumlocution.
Coming out in the open is a choice, but one fraught with the risk of rejection and harsh judgment because people often equate stuttering with lower intelligence.
Tiffani Kittilstved tried to hide her stutter using a combination of whispering, changing the pitch or tone of her voice and putting on strange accents.
She wanted to become a speech-language pathologist and therapist. She chose this major and told her department head about her stutter. He asked her to change her major, saying parents wouldn’t entrust the treatment of their children to a person who stuttered.
She eventually realised her dream and became a speech-language pathologist and therapist, thanks to the encouragement she received from an anthropology professor.
When Sophia Stewart requested her teacher exempt her from verbal presentations in class, she refused.
Stammering is a biological quirk, an accident at birth.
We should not try to force or expect stutterers to speak normally.
We should let them be who they are and navigate their disability on their own terms without fear or shame.
Social stigma prevents stutterers from realising their potential. With the right support, they even can sit in the White House.
“I did not let my speech impairment prevent me from achieving my goals.” — Joe Biden
Society shouldn’t force people to hide their disabilities, like stuttering. Trying to speak normally is unnatural, and it takes a toll on the mental well-being of stutterers. The fear of slipping and being found out always lingers in the back of their minds.
Stutterers don’t need our pity or sympathy; they need our acceptance to live their lives independently and fearlessly.
Thanks for reading.
