I got an email from a student in speech sciences and she was asking about my opinion on what listeners should know when engaging in a conversation with someone who stutters.
1) There are no golden rules; different pws prefer different behaviour.
2) It would be good if they knew the basic facts about stuttering, e.g. high heritability, likely neurological cause, not due to nervousness, high variability of dysfluency from completely fluent to severe blocking, inability to say exactly what you want to say and so on.
3) Better understanding of stuttering itself automatically leads to better behaviour.
4) I am against rules on behaviour as they tend to make people mechanically following them.
5) The pws can do most to ease any tension and he/she has also a responsibility here. Unless you want to be the helpless victim. And after all, most have never seen someone like you before, so you should inform them that you won't bite them. :-)
6) It is practically impossible to educate the whole world.
What is your opinion?
1 comment:
One golden rule and peace is here to stay:
Just listen to the person who stutters as you do with any other person you talk to or as you like to be listened to.
Look at him, let her speak, even if it ll take more time than usual and don t be afraid to ask if you cannot understand what this person says.
Its simple.
Greez, Blanka
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