Back speaking with Christine Tournier on her Exploring Research for Clinical Practice podcast this month and reflecting on key influences in the development of stammer-affirming narratives that could possibly be helpful to the cluttering community. You can listen to the conversation here. Sam Simpson Redefining Stammering
I am Nelly Penttilä, a docent in speech and language pathology, working at Tampere University, Finland. I lead the Kone Foundation–funded research project Did I Stutter?, which examines discrimination, ableism, and everyday inequalities related to stuttering in the Finnish context. Therefore, it was a privilege to open the 15th ISA World Congress for People Who … read more…
“This above all- to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” – Polonius, “Hamlet” Act 1, Scene 3 When you think of Shakespeare what comes to mind? If you are a person who stutters/stutterer, does it invite you or … read more…
Privileged to choose Dr Maria Stewart to discuss her work on the Stammering Collective and her readings of Emily Dickinson’s poetry for the Disorderly Voices podcast hosted by Patrick Campbell for Stuttering Commons. Maria has been a key influence in opening my eyes to the literary and cultural heritage people who stammer are born into. … read more…
Honored to be chosen by Conor Foran to take part in the Disorderly Voices podcast hosted by Patrick Campbell and Maria Stewart to discuss my chapter Looking Back, Looking Forward in the 2019 book Stammering Pride and Prejudice: Difference not Defect, co-edited together with Patrick Campbell and Christopher Constantino. You can listen to our conversation … read more…
As a speech-language therapist, a person who stutters, and a doctoral candidate researching stigma and representation, I often find myself navigating two seemingly distinct worlds: the clinical and the critical. The ‘Bridging Dysfluency Theory and Clinical Practice’ workshop series was the first training I encountered that deliberately built a bridge between these worlds – namely … read more…
How my personal experience inspired my research study To truly understand my excitement about this new project – and my deep commitment to researching the potential benefits of self-compassion for people who stammer – I need to share a little about how self-compassion changed my own life. Some of you may have read parts of … read more…
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…
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…
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…