Fluency

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! ...

Many People Who Stutter (PWS) go through speech therapy at some point in their lives. The goals may differ for each individual: from achieving fluency to managing stuttering, to improving communication skills and confidence, etc. Similarly, the outcome and experience of therapy can vary widely. Some PWS could find therapy to be helpful and empowering while others may have a more complex relationship with their therapy– finding it unhelpful at best and harmful at worst. At the end of the day, it is a personal choice. ...

This is probably one of the biggest points of discussion in the stuttering community. The traditional school of thought and associated therapy strategies have largely focused on achieving fluency. Speaking fluently (or always striving to) and fitting in with societal norms is the only goal for many Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) and People Who Stutter (PWS). I belong to the camp that rejects this notion and will give my reasons as to why: ...