Are Stutterers to Blame?

For a long time, I thought my stutter was my fault.

My mouth froze, my jaw twitched. My tongue searched desperately to achieve correct contact. But I always knew the words I wanted to say. I could see them in my head. I could spell them, rhyme them, sing them in a song. But trying to speak them, especially in mid-stutter, was debilitating.

The more frustrating my speech became, the more curious I grew of its cause. But even after discovering the four main factors (genetics, child development, family dynamics, and neurophysiology from my last entry) I was still frustrated. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just stop.

Couldn’t I control my own body?

That’s when I realized… stuttering is not a physical disability. It’s a psychological one.

My difficulty is my thought process. If I speak freely I hardly ever stutter. On the other hand, if I allow my thoughts time to fully develop, mentally arranging my sentences, my mind hunts for Problem Words… and the anticipation of the words causes my stutter. In this circumstance, the obvious solution seems to be simple: speak before you think. But realistically, can that be applied to every situation?

It’s when stutterers most desire to be fluent that their thoughts must be carefully chosen… making this method completely counterproductive.  Would you, for instance, advise a “speak-then-think” mindset during a job interview? Or when you’re presenting a project in class? In addition to this, these situations are usually more stressful, and increase disfluency. This combination means our words sound like scrambled eggs compared to the Eggs Benedict we had originally planned.

Still, the idea of stutter-anticipation causing a speech impediment is something I’m not entirely comfortable with.  It implies that stutterers (or at least stutterers like me) have a choice in stuttering. But you can’t control your subconscious. If you’re attempting to avoid thinking… well, you’ll instinctively think. I can’t make a mindful decision to speak freely. Our intellect, unfortunately, doesn’t function like this.

Though stutterers can’t consciously avoid stuttering-anticipation, I can’t help but wonder its role in the disorder. We know the four factors are why most children start to stutter. 5% of children at or below the preschool level will stutter; but 3/4 of these stutters will correct themselves by late childhood. So, the real question isn’t: what causes stuttering? Instead, we should be asking: why do some children never stop? Do stuttering children develop stutter-anticipation, and increase their chances of having a lifelong stutter?

With all the progress researchers are making, I know one day I’ll receive answers to these questions. Truthfully, I can’t be certain that stuttering-anticipation is as significant to all stutterers as it is to me. That’s definitely something I’d like to explore, and if you can offer any insight, I’d love to hear it.

In the meantime, there is one thing that I do know: intervention, not prevention, should be our focus. No matter how much stuttering research excites me, I know my speech impediment will always be a part of my life. And I’m just beginning to understand that doesn’t have to be a terrible thing.

A few weeks ago, I met a woman at my job that I instantly liked; over the summer, we’ve had an abundance of jokes and conversations. But I learned, just recently, that she is a speech pathologist. She told me something today that I know will always remain with me. After she left, I grabbed a piece of scrap paper and wrote her words down, terrified to forget them. “Fluency is such a small part of communication,” she told me. “You’ve got everything you need, really… you have heart.”  

My heart is dedicated to stutterers. And I hope this blog is helping you understand why.

-Rachel