ARTS

As people who stutter, we spend a lot of time thinking about communication - ours and others. Every time I used to see someone communicating effectively, I would think “I want to speak like that, well if only I didn’t stutter.” I seldom paused to critically think what I liked about their communication style. All good communication seemed to fall under the single bucket of fluency. Stuttering occupies such a big part of the mental real estate that it more often than not clouds any discernment about what good communication is about. I do ARTS® group speech therapy and this topic of “What makes someone a good communicator?” came up some time ago. We had a fascinating discussion as a group and I have not stopped thinking about it. We talked about the fact that when one looks beyond fluency, there is so much to break down and appreciate about effective communication. Not all fluent speakers are good communicators, while a lot of people who stutter are. So here are the qualities that we came up with - the qualities that make a person fun to listen to, that make a speaker’s monologue engaging, and the qualities that make someone a good communicator! ...