A Voice is Heard

I walk into Rosh Hashanah services right in time to hear the shofar. No matter where I am in the country or what I have to do, I always make an effort to attend services in order to hear the shofar blow. How can such a small, awkward instrument make such a loud, beautiful sound? I read a line from the prayer, Untaneh Tokef:

“The great shofar is sounded, a still small voice is heard.”

This year at the National Stuttering Association conference, I had the honor of going up on stage when my mentor, Katie Gore, received the chapter leader of the year award. It was one of the most memorable moments of my life. When I looked out at the crowd of 700+ people whose lives have all been affected by stuttering, I couldn’t help but have a smile on my face for this beautiful community. From that moment on, I knew this was where I belong.

Two months later, I am beginning graduate school in speech-language pathology. I look in the mirror before I leave for the first day of orientation. No longer do I see a fragile, broken soul. I see strength, experience, and confidence. I put on my bright, sparkly shoes, close the door, and open another to begin my journey.

I enter a room filled with 34 students and the entire faculty of the program. One by one, we go down the rows and introduce ourselves. Habitually, the fear, anxiety, and shame set in. I am brought back to high school introductions: the long blocks, the confused stares, and the erupted laughter. I suppress my fears. This is a new me, a new start. I snap back to reality. I listen; really listen, to the introductions before me instead of over-thinking mine. When it was my turn, all eyes were on me. I took a deep breath and introduced myself: stuttering and all. There was no laughter and no confused stares. Instead, I got the sense from my peers that it was okay to stutter. It's a part of me, but not the whole of me. People were interested in what I was saying, not how I was saying it.  

For the first time in my life, my passion and career match. I went to National Stuttering Association conferences and then would crash. That was my four-day escape from reality, the one time I could truly be myself, and where my passion ignited. I would come home and know that I would have to go back to the boring part of life. The work part, the part where I wouldn’t talk about stuttering, the part where my voice was suppressed.

Now my voice is heard, every day. I am able to talk openly about stuttering and I feel totally accepted here. I wake up every morning excited to start my day. Excited to learn what this field has to offer. Excited for new opportunities and excited to help others. It feels like coming home.

What am I learning? First of all, I am very fortunate to be learning from the “greats”: Vivian Sisskin and Nan Bernstein Ratner. You can’t hear a voice until you understand the disorder. As Sheehan (1980) warns, “Defining stuttering as only a fluency problem borders on professional irresponsibility. It ignores the person. It ignores his feelings about himself.”

So what is stuttering? The ABC’s: There are affective, behavioral, and cognitive components.

Ms. Sisskin gave a great example comparing stuttering to Asthma. You will always have Asthma, even though the symptoms are not always present. There are certain situations that bring about the symptoms, but that doesn’t mean that when you aren’t exhibiting symptoms you don’t have Asthma.

Three words that she used to describe the stuttering experience:

Expectancy.

Struggle.

Avoidance.

Both Ms. Sisskin and Dr. Ratner have reminded us that, according to psychology, an intermittent reinforcement schedule (being rewarded only some of the time) is a powerful way to reinforce emotions and behavior. This helps explain why secondaries become a powerful habit to break. That one time when you (ex. tapped your foot), you got the word out. You begin to associate the tapping of your foot with getting the word out. Even though your secondary doesn’t work to get the word out all the time, the fact that it sometimes does – is an extremely powerful emotional reinforcer. By using these secondaries, you are rewarded by “being released from the moment of stuttering.” Desensitization makes it possible to break this chain.

Stuttering is a hidden disorder. People don’t understand it, many speech-language pathologists are uncomfortable treating it, and many people who stutter hide from it.

Some statistics:

Of 597 certified professional clinicians only 48% of those surveyed felt competent in treating persons who stuttered (Matkin, Ringle, and Snope, 1983)

50% of clinicians working in the public schools had taken a course in stuttering; only 6% reported that the coursework emphasized treatment (Mallard, Gardner, and Downey, 1988)

Of 128 programs responding, 76 (59%) indicated that it is possible for a student to graduate without any clinical experience in fluency disorders (Yaruss, 1999)

How do you make future SLP’s understand the stuttering experience? Have them experience stuttering themselves! Last week, our class did a voluntary stuttering practice exercise (to prep for a voluntary stuttering assignment) where everyone went around the room introducing themselves using “pseudo-stuttering” or fake stuttering. I have to say, my classmates had some pretty damn good stuttering. Never would I have thought that I would be in a classroom where the entire class was stuttering! On my walk home that day, I realized what it is:

Stuttering is normalized here.

I recently listened to my Stuttertalk podcast episodes for the first time. I have not listened to them because I couldn’t bear to hear myself stutter. I played them and for the first time, I was okay…with the blocks, with the silence.

As I sit here a week away from seeing my first ever client, I am ready. It’s time to give back what was given to me. May we listen with empathy and understanding to the voices that just want to be heard.