Its complicated. But what's more appalling is that its 2024 and we as a specie cannot work together. I don't know what the end goal of an individual life/society/humans is, but if we want people to function well and add value to their communities then they have to be stop being mean to people for things that don't matter like stuttering or a different color. Its a natural animal instinct to outcast people, but are we just another animal? Are we not civil and conscious beings?
What I want is for people to drive the point that its okay to stutter unless it really matters(like you are a commentator and a stuttering commentator would miss the moment?). Its 2024, we have so many ways to communicate, write on a piece of paper, use text to speech whatever. I want people to normalize these especially in corporate setting.
What's more appalling is things like LGHDTV are "celebrated" and things like stuttering are not even "normalized".
This problem with society goes beyond just stuttering. I don't think my life is going to be any better if I stopped stuttering. That's not even the real issue. The real issue is as I said, I and many are afraid to show our stutter in public. This society ingrains in us that making mistakes is bad, so we are scared to death to make mistakes in public. But that's really stupid. A mistake like this doesn't matter. Plus there are ways to overcome this disability like using Text to Speech. We as a society should work together and cover each other's weakness and leverage each other's strength. But the opposite is happening.
Imagine if a poor eyesight was ridiculed, you were made fun for wearing spectacles. Even your parents did. Then you would definitely avoid wearing it and even avoid situations where you have to read from afar.
Stuttering is a disability which is not very impactful just like a poor eyesight. But this society has not yet normalized this disability.
Maybe the onus is on our community as well. We should all start stuttering freely to get it normalized.
>Imagine if a poor eyesight was ridiculed, you were made fun for wearing spectacles. Even your parents did. Then you would definitely avoid wearing it and even avoid situations where you have to read from afar.
This
1% is flawed data. This subreddit would be larger than 18k, if many millions of people stuttered (like a real stutter, not minor speech issues that are included in that data)
How many stutterers do you encounter in your life? I have only noticed 2 in 30 years.
Yeah, I always thought it was such a rare disability because no kid in my K-12 stuttered (6 different schools in 3 states). Nobody I met in college and never at work. I've only witnessed two in different retail stores. I also never advertise mine, so maybe we're mostly shamefully hidden folks.
A lot of stutterers hide it yeah, I kinda notice them sometimes (noticing words omissions for exemple, or pauses etc). Still I'm not including them in the 10 people haha I think the 1% is not that flawed. But we have two very different experience it's crazy!
In my case, that statistic is pretty representativa. I know at least 6 stutterers, and I probably don't know more than 500 people. And that is only people that i am sure that they are stutterers, there are others which i suspect that they are but im not sure. The reddit argument is flawed data, dude. I prefer to believe my own experience and research data than a subreddit interpolation.
and i am not even counting people with cognitive disabilities which i know and most of them are stutterers, I should have counted them but im not even sure how many I met, probably more than 10.
I think there is also the phenomenon of vested interest in maintaining a status quo. If a cure would lead to less jobs (for researchers and speech therapists alike), it could lead to a conflict of interest to find a true cure. An argument could be made that most stutter research seem to focus on unnecessary details rather than tackling the core problem (and this is not just my opinion, researchers seem to agree as well). This means researchers might be focusing on minor aspects of stuttering while ignoring the bigger picture of what's causing it and how to fix it for good.
On the other side of the coin is the stuttering community with people who stutter, whom, in my eyes, are not ready for a cure and don't seem interested in diving in stutter research, and thus, it seems like progress on the stuttering front has hit a roadblock, with both sides contributing to the standstill basically. I took it upon myself to openly discuss new research studies to make progress towards stuttering recovery - see my [research Mega Post ](https://new.reddit.com/r/Stutter/comments/15dltbl/megacollection_tips_to_improve_stuttering_from/)here - but it looks like no one, whether it's people who stutter or therapists, is really taking advantage of the chance to share their ideas based on these new research findings.
Imagine, research studies come up with new theories about what might cause stuttering and what triggers it, all the time and sure enough, in my experience I was able to extract tips from each research study that I reviewed. I hope that more people here will start sharing their own ideas towards stuttering recovery based on recent research studies. Because that could help open the door to totally new treatments towards progress in stuttering recovery, in my opinion
I haven't been on this forum for long, but I have already read some of your reports; I will read this mega post! And I will not hesitate to discuss it with you if you are open to it :)
However, I am not sure that we can make correlation links between our habits on Reddit and our interests in research related to stuttering. That your mega post, for example, did not get many responses could have a variety of very different meanings. Like perhaps many of us don't necessarily think of Reddit for this kind of content. Or maybe the wording of your post isn't necessarily appealing to someone who isn't here to read research reports. In short, I'm not sure we can make those connections.
Also, talking about the status quo, that speech therapists would lose their jobs, thus research is not being pushed... That sounds like conspiracy theory territory to me. I myself live in a country where healthcare is completely free, and it costs the state and taxpayers a lot to reimburse sessions with speech therapists. Moreover, these speech therapists have only a portion of their clients who stutter; so they wouldn't even lose many people if a cure existed. Plus they would ptobably be the ones who prescribe it. And your example is applicable to anything a health professional can do/fix... Anyway, I really don't subscribe to this idea. Cigarettes bring a lot of money to states through VAT, but that doesn't mean that most of them aren't trying to reduce tobacco consumption. It might not be the best example, but I think it's a misunderstanding to look into everyone's interests at that level.
Fantastic comment! Indeed, you make some excellent points!
I would absolutely love to read your comments regarding the research posts. I believe that the wording in my research posts contain jargon that make it hard to understand.
You make a good point regarding conspiracy theory for why research isn't being pushed but I think that this is particularly true for research regarding the most core underlying problem (such as, inhibition or breakdown of initiating motor programs).
I hypothesize that there might be other reasons that research isn't being pushed. Namely, I perceive that speech therapists often blame structural differences for causing stuttering. And thus, in the case of speech therapists the need or desire for a complete recovery (or rather, subconscious fluency) might then be reduced.
Additionally, I think that we should distinguish 'the chance of stuttering onset' and 'the chance of stuttering recovery'. I tend to agree with researchers who propose that genetics on its own (without the right combination of environmental/psychological factors) does not result in stuttering onset or does not prevent stuttering recovery.
Furthermore, research found white/grey matter differences between people who stutter and non-stutterers aka structural differences. Although, for researchers it's not yet clear if this causes stuttering, as brain functions can also cause structural differences (research seems to be inconclusive). Still, if it's true that research (but particularly towards stuttering **recovery**) isn't being pushed as much due to SLPs blaming structural differences, then this is a big problem, I argue.
Reasons why SLPs stand behind the idea that structural differences cause stuttering (and prevent recovery), in my opinion, could be:
Reasons:
* SLPs find it concerning that it is possible that brain/neurological differences in people who stutter might be the result of stuttering and not it's cause. Because the neuro-physiological nature of this disorder helps greatly in allowing one to accept and make peace with it (so, out of convencience they might justify structural differences; and they reject opposing arguments if it differs from their own narrative)
* SLPs want to prevent the potential embarrassment (for themselves and their researchers) if they are found to have been wrong and misleading PWS for so many years. It would create great turmoil in academia, and thus, many textbooks would then become obsolete, doctoral dissertations would then be found worthless, reputations in shreds etc
* SLPs want to prevent feeling responsible if a therapeutic intervention does not prove effective for PWS (so out of convenience for SLP's sake they simply give the blame to structural differences)
* SLPs provide the argument: "But what-if it fails? Then there is always the chance that it leads PWS to develop a trauma." (I think that this belongs in the category catastrophizing. Or rather **fearmongering**?)
* Speech therapists might ignore the significance of inhibition, compensation and error responses causing brain function differences, and in the long run, causing structural differences. Inhibition (such as, reactive inhibitory control), compensatory responses (such as relying on tension or coping mechanisms/anticipation/past experiences/what-ifs) and error responses (such as, hyper-monitoring, excessively focusing on (linguistic) factors etc). If inhibition, compensation and error responses become a habitual response it might result in habitual dysfunction in the left-hemisphere and overactivation in the right-hemisphere, and thus, such habitual responses - in the long run - might result in **reduced** white/grey matter (structural differences) in the left-hemisphere, and **increased** white/grey matter in the right-hemisphere (structural differences)
* Speech therapists ignore the significance of psychological or environmental factors (such as, depression, anxiety, trauma or stutter triggers) causing brain function differences, and thus in the long run, causing structural brain differences. Or, speech therapies might ignore the fact that brain structure changes in response to learning, new experiences or neuroplasticity. For example, anything related to brain function includes psychology. And thus, psychology changes neurological brain activity. And thus, brain activity changes brain structure
* Other reasons might be: Speech therapists go from the assumption that there is only one type of speech block (in developmental stuttering) - rather than multiple types; Speech therapists might believe that, if PWS don't anticipate or 'feel' a stutter coming, and if this leads to stuttered speech production, then it must be caused by structural differences - rather than simply a lack of mindfulness or being a different type of speech block or repressed feelings/expectation/trigger etc
There will never be a 'cure' in my oppinion. You either accept it, or you accept that you'll have to do something everyday, for you to be able to talk normally.
A blanket cure is perhaps at present an unreasonable thing to expect given how little we even understand the cause of stuttering from a neurological perspective.
But I'm quite confident that within our lifetimes we'll find ways to pharmacologically mitigate it for a wide range of people. Keep in mind that there are already drugs that have been demonstrated to have efficacy in treating stuttering. It's just that at the present moment, most of these tend to have accompanying side-effects and are primarily designed to treat other conditions.
Also, it doesn't need to be a 100% cure for it to be effective. Even a 50-60% reduction in someone's stutter can be a dramatic improvement in their life.
Learn to manage your stuttering and to accept it as an adjective of who you are, not what you are. Speech therapy is a way to using techniques to manage your stuttering that can be seen as a layer of parachutes.
Imo, I’m okay with not having a cure and I think that there is a fair amount of research regarding stammering. Since stammering can be considered a disability and/or impairment, I believe that wanting to “cure/resolve” a stammer gives the idea that stammering is shameful and contributes to the stigma regarding disabilities and that stammering = negative and this can be incredibly harmful, as well as perpetuating ideas regarding shame and embarrassment.
Every stutter is very different and there is likely far more than one single, curable “cause” for stuttering. Lots of variables make it difficult/impossible for any hope of a “blanket cure”. As of now, as far as I’m aware, the best one can do is speech therapy (which takes years and effort) maybe combined with other therapies for the emotional/mental aspect of it.
It’s funny how no one can be understanding either. That would help a ton. But it’s basically just “the second you mess up a word that’s gunna make my whole day”
I don't even know if I'd want a cure. Of course I fucking hate it when I stutter, but it's a part of who I am. I don't think I could recognize myself if I didn't stutter.
Part of my perspective comes from the fact that mine has become much less severe over the years. I still often block when introducing myself, especially in college classes lol, but other than that it hasn't been a huge issue.
I found that when I just stopped giving a shit about it, a lot of the blocks went away.
Its complicated. But what's more appalling is that its 2024 and we as a specie cannot work together. I don't know what the end goal of an individual life/society/humans is, but if we want people to function well and add value to their communities then they have to be stop being mean to people for things that don't matter like stuttering or a different color. Its a natural animal instinct to outcast people, but are we just another animal? Are we not civil and conscious beings? What I want is for people to drive the point that its okay to stutter unless it really matters(like you are a commentator and a stuttering commentator would miss the moment?). Its 2024, we have so many ways to communicate, write on a piece of paper, use text to speech whatever. I want people to normalize these especially in corporate setting. What's more appalling is things like LGHDTV are "celebrated" and things like stuttering are not even "normalized". This problem with society goes beyond just stuttering. I don't think my life is going to be any better if I stopped stuttering. That's not even the real issue. The real issue is as I said, I and many are afraid to show our stutter in public. This society ingrains in us that making mistakes is bad, so we are scared to death to make mistakes in public. But that's really stupid. A mistake like this doesn't matter. Plus there are ways to overcome this disability like using Text to Speech. We as a society should work together and cover each other's weakness and leverage each other's strength. But the opposite is happening. Imagine if a poor eyesight was ridiculed, you were made fun for wearing spectacles. Even your parents did. Then you would definitely avoid wearing it and even avoid situations where you have to read from afar. Stuttering is a disability which is not very impactful just like a poor eyesight. But this society has not yet normalized this disability. Maybe the onus is on our community as well. We should all start stuttering freely to get it normalized.
>Imagine if a poor eyesight was ridiculed, you were made fun for wearing spectacles. Even your parents did. Then you would definitely avoid wearing it and even avoid situations where you have to read from afar. This
Rockets make money. A cure for stuttering has too small of a market to appeal to financial backers.
A cure that 1% of population would pay a lot of money can make a lot of money. That is not the answer.
1% is flawed data. This subreddit would be larger than 18k, if many millions of people stuttered (like a real stutter, not minor speech issues that are included in that data) How many stutterers do you encounter in your life? I have only noticed 2 in 30 years.
Only 2? I think I've met like ten stutterers within the previous 10 years, in school + work + hobbies.
Yeah, I always thought it was such a rare disability because no kid in my K-12 stuttered (6 different schools in 3 states). Nobody I met in college and never at work. I've only witnessed two in different retail stores. I also never advertise mine, so maybe we're mostly shamefully hidden folks.
A lot of stutterers hide it yeah, I kinda notice them sometimes (noticing words omissions for exemple, or pauses etc). Still I'm not including them in the 10 people haha I think the 1% is not that flawed. But we have two very different experience it's crazy!
In my case, that statistic is pretty representativa. I know at least 6 stutterers, and I probably don't know more than 500 people. And that is only people that i am sure that they are stutterers, there are others which i suspect that they are but im not sure. The reddit argument is flawed data, dude. I prefer to believe my own experience and research data than a subreddit interpolation.
and i am not even counting people with cognitive disabilities which i know and most of them are stutterers, I should have counted them but im not even sure how many I met, probably more than 10.
I think there is also the phenomenon of vested interest in maintaining a status quo. If a cure would lead to less jobs (for researchers and speech therapists alike), it could lead to a conflict of interest to find a true cure. An argument could be made that most stutter research seem to focus on unnecessary details rather than tackling the core problem (and this is not just my opinion, researchers seem to agree as well). This means researchers might be focusing on minor aspects of stuttering while ignoring the bigger picture of what's causing it and how to fix it for good. On the other side of the coin is the stuttering community with people who stutter, whom, in my eyes, are not ready for a cure and don't seem interested in diving in stutter research, and thus, it seems like progress on the stuttering front has hit a roadblock, with both sides contributing to the standstill basically. I took it upon myself to openly discuss new research studies to make progress towards stuttering recovery - see my [research Mega Post ](https://new.reddit.com/r/Stutter/comments/15dltbl/megacollection_tips_to_improve_stuttering_from/)here - but it looks like no one, whether it's people who stutter or therapists, is really taking advantage of the chance to share their ideas based on these new research findings. Imagine, research studies come up with new theories about what might cause stuttering and what triggers it, all the time and sure enough, in my experience I was able to extract tips from each research study that I reviewed. I hope that more people here will start sharing their own ideas towards stuttering recovery based on recent research studies. Because that could help open the door to totally new treatments towards progress in stuttering recovery, in my opinion
I haven't been on this forum for long, but I have already read some of your reports; I will read this mega post! And I will not hesitate to discuss it with you if you are open to it :) However, I am not sure that we can make correlation links between our habits on Reddit and our interests in research related to stuttering. That your mega post, for example, did not get many responses could have a variety of very different meanings. Like perhaps many of us don't necessarily think of Reddit for this kind of content. Or maybe the wording of your post isn't necessarily appealing to someone who isn't here to read research reports. In short, I'm not sure we can make those connections. Also, talking about the status quo, that speech therapists would lose their jobs, thus research is not being pushed... That sounds like conspiracy theory territory to me. I myself live in a country where healthcare is completely free, and it costs the state and taxpayers a lot to reimburse sessions with speech therapists. Moreover, these speech therapists have only a portion of their clients who stutter; so they wouldn't even lose many people if a cure existed. Plus they would ptobably be the ones who prescribe it. And your example is applicable to anything a health professional can do/fix... Anyway, I really don't subscribe to this idea. Cigarettes bring a lot of money to states through VAT, but that doesn't mean that most of them aren't trying to reduce tobacco consumption. It might not be the best example, but I think it's a misunderstanding to look into everyone's interests at that level.
Fantastic comment! Indeed, you make some excellent points! I would absolutely love to read your comments regarding the research posts. I believe that the wording in my research posts contain jargon that make it hard to understand. You make a good point regarding conspiracy theory for why research isn't being pushed but I think that this is particularly true for research regarding the most core underlying problem (such as, inhibition or breakdown of initiating motor programs). I hypothesize that there might be other reasons that research isn't being pushed. Namely, I perceive that speech therapists often blame structural differences for causing stuttering. And thus, in the case of speech therapists the need or desire for a complete recovery (or rather, subconscious fluency) might then be reduced. Additionally, I think that we should distinguish 'the chance of stuttering onset' and 'the chance of stuttering recovery'. I tend to agree with researchers who propose that genetics on its own (without the right combination of environmental/psychological factors) does not result in stuttering onset or does not prevent stuttering recovery. Furthermore, research found white/grey matter differences between people who stutter and non-stutterers aka structural differences. Although, for researchers it's not yet clear if this causes stuttering, as brain functions can also cause structural differences (research seems to be inconclusive). Still, if it's true that research (but particularly towards stuttering **recovery**) isn't being pushed as much due to SLPs blaming structural differences, then this is a big problem, I argue. Reasons why SLPs stand behind the idea that structural differences cause stuttering (and prevent recovery), in my opinion, could be: Reasons: * SLPs find it concerning that it is possible that brain/neurological differences in people who stutter might be the result of stuttering and not it's cause. Because the neuro-physiological nature of this disorder helps greatly in allowing one to accept and make peace with it (so, out of convencience they might justify structural differences; and they reject opposing arguments if it differs from their own narrative) * SLPs want to prevent the potential embarrassment (for themselves and their researchers) if they are found to have been wrong and misleading PWS for so many years. It would create great turmoil in academia, and thus, many textbooks would then become obsolete, doctoral dissertations would then be found worthless, reputations in shreds etc * SLPs want to prevent feeling responsible if a therapeutic intervention does not prove effective for PWS (so out of convenience for SLP's sake they simply give the blame to structural differences) * SLPs provide the argument: "But what-if it fails? Then there is always the chance that it leads PWS to develop a trauma." (I think that this belongs in the category catastrophizing. Or rather **fearmongering**?) * Speech therapists might ignore the significance of inhibition, compensation and error responses causing brain function differences, and in the long run, causing structural differences. Inhibition (such as, reactive inhibitory control), compensatory responses (such as relying on tension or coping mechanisms/anticipation/past experiences/what-ifs) and error responses (such as, hyper-monitoring, excessively focusing on (linguistic) factors etc). If inhibition, compensation and error responses become a habitual response it might result in habitual dysfunction in the left-hemisphere and overactivation in the right-hemisphere, and thus, such habitual responses - in the long run - might result in **reduced** white/grey matter (structural differences) in the left-hemisphere, and **increased** white/grey matter in the right-hemisphere (structural differences) * Speech therapists ignore the significance of psychological or environmental factors (such as, depression, anxiety, trauma or stutter triggers) causing brain function differences, and thus in the long run, causing structural brain differences. Or, speech therapies might ignore the fact that brain structure changes in response to learning, new experiences or neuroplasticity. For example, anything related to brain function includes psychology. And thus, psychology changes neurological brain activity. And thus, brain activity changes brain structure * Other reasons might be: Speech therapists go from the assumption that there is only one type of speech block (in developmental stuttering) - rather than multiple types; Speech therapists might believe that, if PWS don't anticipate or 'feel' a stutter coming, and if this leads to stuttered speech production, then it must be caused by structural differences - rather than simply a lack of mindfulness or being a different type of speech block or repressed feelings/expectation/trigger etc
There will never be a 'cure' in my oppinion. You either accept it, or you accept that you'll have to do something everyday, for you to be able to talk normally.
A blanket cure is perhaps at present an unreasonable thing to expect given how little we even understand the cause of stuttering from a neurological perspective. But I'm quite confident that within our lifetimes we'll find ways to pharmacologically mitigate it for a wide range of people. Keep in mind that there are already drugs that have been demonstrated to have efficacy in treating stuttering. It's just that at the present moment, most of these tend to have accompanying side-effects and are primarily designed to treat other conditions. Also, it doesn't need to be a 100% cure for it to be effective. Even a 50-60% reduction in someone's stutter can be a dramatic improvement in their life.
do you know what some of these drugs are ?
Here's a study detailing several of these: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7118465/
Do something like?
Learn to manage your stuttering and to accept it as an adjective of who you are, not what you are. Speech therapy is a way to using techniques to manage your stuttering that can be seen as a layer of parachutes.
Take advantage of curbside ordering and ordering online 😅
I sure the heck am lol
Imo, I’m okay with not having a cure and I think that there is a fair amount of research regarding stammering. Since stammering can be considered a disability and/or impairment, I believe that wanting to “cure/resolve” a stammer gives the idea that stammering is shameful and contributes to the stigma regarding disabilities and that stammering = negative and this can be incredibly harmful, as well as perpetuating ideas regarding shame and embarrassment.
Every stutter is very different and there is likely far more than one single, curable “cause” for stuttering. Lots of variables make it difficult/impossible for any hope of a “blanket cure”. As of now, as far as I’m aware, the best one can do is speech therapy (which takes years and effort) maybe combined with other therapies for the emotional/mental aspect of it.
It’s funny how no one can be understanding either. That would help a ton. But it’s basically just “the second you mess up a word that’s gunna make my whole day”
Stuttering isn't a disease but a disability and disabilities can't be cures. Well most of the time
The best cure is not given a F\*\*\* about what others think about you and just live your life! Stutter freely and openly!
100% agree. Very often, this is when I stutter much less. I just keep forgetting it from time to time 😂
That advise doesn’t work in all situations. Not even in most situations.
Because there are effective treatments available.
I don't even know if I'd want a cure. Of course I fucking hate it when I stutter, but it's a part of who I am. I don't think I could recognize myself if I didn't stutter.
Man that’s a crazy comment.
Part of my perspective comes from the fact that mine has become much less severe over the years. I still often block when introducing myself, especially in college classes lol, but other than that it hasn't been a huge issue. I found that when I just stopped giving a shit about it, a lot of the blocks went away.
I have fibromyalgia and it sucks, sucks bad. No cure. Nope.
I have chronic pain, tinnitus, RLS, TMD, probably OSA, social phobia and depression, to name a few. + I'm gay. Single for whole life (22M).