Old Quotes by Child and Adult Stutterers
While doing research for voluntary stuttering’s history, I stumbled upon a 1966 guide by Bessie Chenault Simpson called “Stuttering Therapy: a guide for the Speech Clinician”.
As expected for 1966, it’s full of some awful things. But more interesting… is all the good. The preface encourages the speech therapist to meet a child where they are at - every stutterer is different. The clinician is to look, listen, and learn from the stuttering child. And if the child is being rejected by his family due to his stutter, instill a sense of belonging.
This is, need I remind you, 1966.
Of course, the way to bring about this belonging is to ‘change his behavior to become acceptable to others and himself’.
Ah, well, she was almost there.
In the preface, she quotes kids and adults who stutter. Which is amazing. Let’s read some of those…
(Preface pages vi and vii in Stuttering therapy 1966 book. Numerical list of quotes.)
Number 10 is wonderful, and number 5 is so funny and horrible but so relatable. “I hate anybody that talks a lot.”
Number 11 is…. I could cry. “I love Speech class. I get to stutter and nobody cares.”
And number 16… is incredible. “I got out and taught my buddies how to stutter.”
What’s incredible to me is how someone could read all of this and not realize the wonders that may come of simply allowing a stutter to exist… to tell others to get used to it.
In 1966, this was published and acknowledged the whole-person approach to speech therapy. It’s obviously very flawed, but it’s why I disagree with people who say whole-person approach to stuttering therapy is new.
There’s some really rough stuff in there. A quote she includes from Harold Luper and Robert Mulder is, “If an adult stutterer has learned to stop hiding his stuttering, he should be reminded of the reasons for continuing to do so.”
Ouch.
Stuttering therapy has always been filled with contradictions. ‘It’s OK to stutter’ mixed in with ‘but let’s train it out of you’ has apparently coexisted for decades upon decades.
Of the quotes provided in the preface, number 16, the adult from the Army, really affects me. “I got out and taught my buddies how to stutter.” That’s the resolution that person who stutter found. He got comfortable with his stutter. By teaching his buddies to stutter, it removed a lot of the taboo nature, I imagine, of having a stutter.
Why should he be encouraged to hide his stutter after this? It’s one thing if someone wants to hide it, but it’s another when they have stopped hiding it. Not everyone who stutters wants to make the sacrifices it takes to hide their stutter and appear fluent.
Despite that awful quote from Luper and Mulder, I appreciate one thing about it - it is honest about appearing fluent. You are hiding the stutter. You are not curing it; you have not solved it. You are hiding it.
I’d much prefer use to revert back to thatlanguage when discussing fluency techniques. These are not techniques to be fluent; rather, they are ways to hide a stutter. I’m not passing judgement on those who do so, but I am demanding honesty about the reality of these tools.
Did you like those quotes? Would love to hear your thoughts on them - did you have a favorite, or one that pulled at your heart the most? Perhaps one that felt the most relatable? Leave a comment and let me know.
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Simpson, Bessie Chenault. Stuttering Therapy: A Guide for the Speech Clinician. Danville, Illinois, Interstate Printers & Publishers, 1966, archive.org/details/stutteringtherap0000bess/page/n1/mode/2up.