[ Contents | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Chris Roach
Date: 9/30/02
Time: 10:00:56 PM
Remote Name: 205.188.208.137
Bob,
Excellent paper! Congratulations. As I followed your story, I, too, grew incredulous...more so that the source of ignorance of the letter writer was within the professional speech community! Wow! That's scary.
Moving past his obvious confusion and putting him aside, there is the issue of being a role model within the stuttering community which I find intriguing. This was prompted by his "dooming the youth" comment. Speaking from my admittedly more covert/mild stuttering tag, similar stutterers I talk with of my equivalent degree of lesser disfluency and more fluency capability often speak of a conflict that arises from "role modeling" in the stuttering community to younger people. On one hand, we DO have an easier and more seamless path to integrate fully into mainstream society simply because we are fluent more often (and disfluent less often) than our stuttering counterparts with greater degrees of disfluency. On the other hand, we carry significant "icebergs" beneath the surface and have come to understand the need to be more open and self-accepting of our stuttering in order to overcome the associated fears of stuttering.
Here's my question/issue. I belive that when young stutterers are ONLY told to stutter away without any regard for speaking as fluently as they can (up to their best potential) and just simply "accept it," walk away with a horrendous discouraging message and pit in their stomach about what their future holds. However, when fluency is introduced as a co-goal to basically "speak as well as you can <honestly...without the tricks,>" WHILE accepting the fact that stuttering IS okay and a part of self-acceptance when it occurs and no matter WHEN OR WHERE it occurs, that same young person finds some hope in their future that fluency can coexist with their disfluency. Sadly, I see a trend of outspoken advocates within the stuttering community so quick to condemn any pursuit of fluency improvement by individuals who maintain potential for a higher degree of fluency than them. I'm afraid they "don't get it" when it comes to the fact that stutterers with greater intermittent fluency capabilities don't want to simply accept ONLY disfluency as a way of life when they have the choice not to.
When mentoring youthful stutterers, what have you found to be the most honest balance between (a) speak up to your best potential with your best fluency skills while (b) accepting stuttering, regardless of the severity, as it exists in your life?
Bob, thanks again for a thoughtful paper and stimulating contribution.
Chris Roach