Reframing stammering and making pride possible

Image

Caption

Joshua

Joshua St Pierre, Associate Professor at the University of Alberta, gives an impassioned argument for 'stammering pride', suggesting a more human way to look at our stammers.

For many, the idea of 'stammering pride', i.e. feeling proud about being someone who stammers, can seem terribly wrong. Why would we take pride in the pain and shame that comes with stammering? Isn't this just giving up, throwing in the towel, admitting defeat?

I want to suggest there is a very different way of thinking about stammering. One that reframes the entire matter and makes pride possible. 

The Inherited view of stammering

Until recently, the stammering community has not had the language to make sense of our experiences. We have been left using the tools of a fluent-dominated society. It is thus important to note that the common approach to stammering — where it is seen as a failure of communication, a biological mistake to be fixed — only feels natural because these ideas are pushed on us from a very early age. 

In the 'medical model' way of looking at disability that arose in the nineteenth century, disability is an individual flaw, a breakdown, an error in proper human function. We inherit this 'medical model' view of the world from culture, passed down moment-by-moment, decade-by-decade, until it is so common that it begins to feel like the air we breathe, invisible and taken for granted. 

The 'problem of stammering' is not stammering itself, but a cookie-cutter world that has forgotten how to support the thriving of non-fluent speakers.

And yet, the medical model is not a natural but an artificial view of the world. As the saying goes, "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail". In other words, if you only have one tool, you'll try to use it to solve every problem. The medical model is what happens when we as a society lose all but a few tools from our belts. The medical model has forgotten all but the hammer of medical diagnosis, rehabilitation and cure, and thus approaches the world from a very narrow perspective. Everything, for those attached to this worldview, starts to look like a nail: a medical problem to be solved. Everything begins to look like a disorder awaiting medical intervention. This is unfortunate because it turns the world of rich diversity and beauty into just two categories: normal and abnormal, good and bad. 

making space for speech diversity

A more human approach is to appreciate that the world is composed of diversity too wide to put into neat categories. Stammering is a form of natural vocal diversity, a difference but not a bad difference. The medical model turns differences into bad differences when they are not useful or economically productive. But what if, instead of changing bodies to fit society in narrow ways, we opened our imagination to re-organise society and culture — to make the fabric of society more accessible for a wider range of human variation?   

In other words, the 'problem of stammering' is not stammering itself, but a cookie-cutter world that has forgotten how to support the thriving of non-fluent speakers. Biodiversity in the natural world needs a healthy environment to flourish, and so does biodiversity in the human world. So much of the pain of stammering comes from a world that refuses to support and make space for us. The good news is that the world can always be re-made. 

...the antidote to stammering shame is not becoming 'normal', but finding joy and community through stammering. 

This, then, is the starting point for stammering pride: stammering is not a flaw, an error, a defect. It is a form of human variation, a valid way of being human. It is a way of communicating that may take more time, and require more care to listen — but so what? The value of human beings is not defined by efficiency. The value of communication does not depend on being heard the first time. Stammering pride turns the tables on a society built on instant connection. It insists that real communication takes time, and that stammering can show the way. It reveals that we are not the problem — if anything, we are part of a solution to societies that are forgetting how to commune with each other.

Changing the conversation

In a world still dominated by the medical model and running on efficiency, stigma and shame will continue to attach to stammering. Stammering pride does not imagine that these problems automatically disappear. But it changes the conversation by recognising that the antidote to stammering shame is not becoming 'normal', but finding joy and community through stammering.

• Read more about Stammering Pride

A common criticism of stammering pride is that it denies the difficulties of life with a stammer. While stammering pride does not erase the physical tension that often comes with stammering, it (somewhat ironically) makes stammering easier. As the pioneering speech & language therapist Joseph Sheehan argued, stammering happens in between the desire to speak and the fear of speaking; the physical tension comes from trying not to stammer. When we stop trying to avoid and hide stammering, and, moreover, when we can recognise that so much of the tension comes from trying to meet society's expectations, speech can become more spontaneous and enjoyable.

This is one of the basic ideas of 'social models' of disability, that the 'problem' of disability doesn't lie with individuals, but with a world that refuses to make space for and accommodate them. When we transform the world, we transform stammering. 

Stammering pride is thus an invitation to be human, to inhabit our voice, and together to re-organise the world in more hospitable ways.

Joshua is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta, and is the Canada Research Chair in Critical Disability Studies. He is also a Principle Investigator of Stuttering Commons.

What do you think? Do you agree with Joshua? If you would like to write an article with your views, email editor@stamma.org or see Submit Something For The Site for details.

Read more Your Voice articles.