What would a conversation between two people who stutter look like? As I write I am putting the finishing touches to a collaborative piece of work that Conor Foran and I have been working on for our upcoming exhibition at City Lit in London. The exhibition is called ’Wouldn’t you rather talk like us?’ – … read more…
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…
I have grown up smothered by a veil of shame, too scared to speak or even open my mouth. My stammer was “crippling” or “disabling” and it defined every inch of my being and my experiences. There was not only a lack of pride (I never dreamt that pride and stammering could be used in … read more…
In June 2023 I took part in the 50 Million Voices practice interview event; an initiative that does so much to unlock the talent of people who stutter by tackling the barriers created by workplace interviews. I’ve been involved with 50MV since meeting Iain Wilkie and Sam Simpson when I was a mentor on the … read more…
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…
It’s an interesting time for therapists working with stammering. Not always a comfortable seat at the table when we’re considering the social model of disability with questions about what’s useful and what’s unhelpful, even harmful, in our work, and when our laziest thinking and assumptions are challenged. The online discussion group ‘Advanced Conversations in Stammering’ … read more…
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…
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…
Learnings from the 2019 Annual Conference of the National Stuttering Association of the USA In 2019 I was surprised to receive an invitation to address the annual pre-conference of the National Stuttering Association of America (NSA). To this day, when it comes to neurodivergent conditions, people tend to think of Autism, ADHD, the Dys “sisters”, Lexia, … read more…
What happens when we view speech and language therapy for children who stutter as a celebration of difference rather than a process of chasing fluency? Is it possible to throw a party announcing we stutter, loud and proud? About three years ago I sat in a room with six 10 and 11 year old boys … read more…