Dysfluency in Three Modes of Belonging

Stuttering pride is starting to mature. No longer a hushed whisper that might evaporate if spoken aloud, the social movement of stuttering pride has turned to root and flower. In this post I want to consider the growing stuttering community from the perspective of a gardener. Nietzsche, of all people, offers a starting point: “Woe … read more…

New places on the map – how ‘Stammering Pride and Prejudice’ changed my work as a therapist

I have been a speech and language therapist for 30 years now working with people who stammer of all ages. I like the idea that everything I learned about stuttering and its therapy resembles a map. When I  listened to Sam Simpson’s keynote talk at the ECSF Symposium in Antwerp in 2020, it felt that … read more…

The Stories Beyond Words project: creatively reworking and reclaiming time

Something serendipitous has welled up in my PhD research. An unexpected connection has sparked and fused. This connection is all about time, or rather its disruption, through usurping societal expectations of chronological time. It spans between my research area and the creative approach. This connection is opening up possibilities for thinking creatively around disfluency. The … read more…

Breaking the B-B-Binaries

Gender expression and fluency aren’t usually two things people pair together, however stammering is forced to exist on a binary in a similar way to gender. Children are always taught fluency is the inherent good while stammering is the undesirable bad, that it’s supposedly impossible to feel any other way about it. As any person … read more…

On Fridays we advance ableism; or, what we can all learn from Lizzo

I had been meaning to contribute to Redefining Stammering for some time now. Sam reached out after reading a paper I had published, with co-authors Ellen Rombouts and Pascal Borry, in the Journal of Fluency Disorders. The paper, a carved-up version of my master’s thesis, presented the following argument: the scientific hope of discovering developmental … read more…

Fishing for sharks: teenage voices and stuttering

Adolescence is a time of challenge and exploration, on the one hand pushing boundaries and on the other trying to explore possible identities for best fit. As a speech and language therapist, I too struggle sometimes on offering a service that is fit for purpose for teenagers who stutter. I believe in the power of … read more…

The Neurodiversity Paradigm: Shining a light on the problem with normativity, ableism, and the path to neurodivergent-affirming practice

The origins of the ‘normal range’ and the Medical Model In the latter 1800s, Sir Francis Galton, statistician and proponent of eugenics, Darwin’s survival of the fittest and scientific racism, was the first person to apply statistical methods to study human difference, describing the ‘normal distribution’ in human characteristics, determining everything from the average attractiveness … read more…

The Paradox of Concealing Stuttering

I have been captivated with the experience of hiding parts of our identities since early childhood. The movie Mulan came out when I was a tween, and I can still remember singing the song “Reflection” on repeat in my bedroom. These were some of my favorite lines: “Why must we all conceal What we think, … read more…

The Accident of Stammering

Models and Metaphors   Bit by bit, humans make models of the world to try and make sense of it. This is as true for disability as it is for astrophysics or evolutionary biology. In my contribution to Stammering Pride and Prejudice, I outlined just four ways that disability has been modeled: “a cosmic sign … read more…

Understanding Stuttering Therapy Through A Trauma-Informed Lens

“I don’t understand. I was ready. Truly ready. But when I opened my mouth to speak I blocked so hard and couldn’t get any sounds out. It felt like a thousand bricks lodged in my throat. When I finally did get the sounds moving, I stuttered so hard. Every syllable I uttered felt like a … read more…