Is there a connection between war and stuttering? It seems there may be a connection and perhaps not just one. We call extreme conflict "war", but when it comes to human activity and psychology it is not just war as we understand the term related to fighting among and within nations.

During 1997-98 Albania passed through civil uprising that in some parts of the country became civil war or maybe just mayhem, where to kill a person was something easy and punishable only by the same way. It brought death and suffering to thousand of Albanian families. I had never thought that there may be some connection between wide extreme violence and stuttering, but about two years ago I was asked for help by the parents of an adolescent with severe stuttering. The young man was 14 years old and his stuttering had started during the conflict. I learned his story from the father. It was tragically simple. Someone had pointed a gun at the 7 year old child, who was terrified because he had seen first hand what the gun would do when fired. From that day the boy had exaggerated his bumpy speech into severe stuttering, particularly during stressful situations and in front of authority figures.

I needed very little time to understand his stuttering, which consisted primarily of silent blocks with barely visible physical struggle. He could just barely say his name. Anything else was a "big enterprise". Psychologically he had a real problem with staying alone or in groups of too many members. He remembered very well his ordeal, but not his stuttering which confused him.

This case made me think that maybe were more children like him. During the last two years I have probed 10 of 140 public schools in Tirana, Albania. Because of the overpopulation of schools there are about 1200 pupils in every school, with a total of something more then 12,000 children from the age of 6 to 14. Of interest for this paper are the 13 and 14 year old adolescents. Based on information provided by the teachers and the social workers of the schools the following was discovered:

• In 13 and 14 years olds, stuttering was 4 times more visible then in the other groups. From the information gathered a frequency of stuttering of approximately 8% was discovered instead of the approximately 2% reported two years ago from an investigation on 5 Albanian schools, conducted by Easy Word Project as part of the Preliminary report of the Project in 2006. There are no other statistics about stuttering in Albania with which to compare these findings and there is a recognizable possibility of some error in this study. On the other hand the investigation was conducted with very simple and easily followed guidelines.
  • The social workers reported that nearly all parents related the stuttering of their children with the years of war. This information was partially verified with some parents that were willing to talk about it. From the interviews it was discovered that most of the children had direct experiences of violent scenes and situations.
  • Stuttering was the main problem, but there are also other severe disorders, such as selective mutism and an increased occurrence of anxiety, particularly when facing aggressively charged situations and before authoritarian figures.
  • Taking in account the poor level of information about stuttering of the teachers and social workers interviewed for this research, is safe to come to the conclusion that there are undoubtedly more children affected by covert stuttering and other less visible communication disorders and I am afraid these cases will never be identified.
  • Overall the two probed groups were found louder in their communication with others and expressed visible signs of aggression, particularly toward younger children or threatening figures.
  • All of them recognized guns as weapons and did not consider guns as toys, as their younger friends thought, but rather as tools of power. The majority of them recognized the finality of death and were attracted more by violent videogames, such as "Counter Strike", in which situation their co players were asked to maintain the "honor" and "fight like a man". The "man's" weapons in this game was a knife and the sniper gun was recognized as a coward's weapon.
  • Overall children these two groups seemed to be more independent than they should be for their age -- more calculating and financially aware. Furthermore, many adolescents of these age groups have fallen out of school is search of ambulatory small jobs.
  • Sexually they seem more mature and already recognize sexuality as a weapon or tool to be used. This made their teachers generally think that was the fault of television or unlimited internet access in the many inexpensive internet cafes spread throughout Tirana, where you can watch any porn movie for 50 cents.
  • These are the two group ages that now have formed gangs of thieves and violent gangs in Albanian cities. The Albanian government reported last year an increase of 50% of violent crimes from these two age groups.

All this information is just the tip of the psychological iceberg swimming in the Albanian society today that surely needs a closer look. It suggests a close link between prolonged exposure to violent situations and a concentration of communication disorders. We should not forget also that war is also associated with the exaggeration of many other physical and psychological disorders, not just on children and young adults, but throughout the age spectrum.

At the end of these words the question again comes to my mind : Do we have more stutterers because of the war? I don't think so! Why then does it appear that there are more stuttering children out there? I believe that we have just an exaggeration of communication disorders in general. The children put through a violent and threatening situation will normally exaggerate all his or her feelings, particularly the negative ones. The war must look like a collective situation, but for the individual is it just a very dark and scary personal experience. With this logic it is safe to say that war does not produce stutterers, it just emphasize stuttering from mild to severe, making us think that there are more stutterers than normal. The same situation may be found in children subjected to other forms of prolonged violence.

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