I have written quite a lot of blog series here on Sweeney’s Blogs, and as I haven’t done one for a couple of weeks now, I was thinking, should they make a return? I have been considering bringing blog series back to the page for some time, so what I thought I would do over the next couple of blogs is to talk through some of my ideas for potential series, and see if anybody is interested in them!
Today’s blog is going to be about my potentially new Stuttering Series.
I was scrolling through my Facebook feed during my lunch hour earlier on this week and a trailer for a film called “My Beautiful Stutter” showed up on my suggested posts. Up to know, I hadn’t heard of many films that were made to address the issue of Stuttering, apart from the odd exception such as The King’s Speech, or The Waterboy, so it is safe to safe that I was very intrigued on how they were going to go about doing it.
I have not been able to actually watch the film itself yet, but in today’s blog we are going to look at some of my hopes and aspirations as to what this film can do for the Stuttering Community and for the stigma that surrounds Stuttering as a whole.
Have you ever wondered what it feels like to Stutter? Do you know there is more than one type of Stutter out there? Do you know any famous people who have a Stutter? The Stuttering in Mainstream Media series takes a look at all of these questions and much much more!
Today’s blog is going to be the twelfth blog in the Stuttering in Mainstream Media series and is going to be a summary of the series. I have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks thinking and planning about where I wanted this series to go. At the minute I feel like I have covered everything that I want to for know so today’s blog will be the last blog in this series for a while. In today’s blog, I will be recapping some of the key points I have made over the course of the series and bringing up some important points to remember.
There’s more than one kind of Stutter/Stammer!
When talking about stuttering it is crucial to remember that there is more than one type of stutter. Each type of stuttering can be managed differently and each type does have a different effect on the stutterer. If you are familiar with the different types then it will make talking to someone with a stutter so much easier. You will be able to recognise when someone is stuttering and then hopefully will know how to work around it.
If you cannot remember the different types of stutter or want an update you can find them all on our Blogapedia here: https://sweeneysblog.com/blogapedia/. We talk about the main three types of stutter in the First blog in the series!
When we are thinking about a stutter, one of the most important things to remember is that a stutter doesn’t stop you doing anything. A Stutter may change the way you approach something compared to if you didn’t have a stutter but it doesn’t stop you doing it. Don’t see a stutter as a roadblock, see it as an obstacle that you will feel so good about when you’ve overcome it.
Your surrounding environment can have a large effect on a stutter
When I talk to people who say that their stutter has had a large impact on their life the first thing that we talk about is our surrounding environments. It is something that a lot of people do not really think of when it is a really important variable to consider. A good social group does have a lot of positives to it but one that people don’t think of very often is the effect on a persons stutter. When you are around people who you are comfortable with and who you can be yourself around then you will start to stutter less. The opposite obviously happens if you are in a bad environment. Going through life in a good working environment with a good social group is key to reducing the amount you stutter.
Patience is key for talking with/ talking to someone with a stutter
One of the points that I cannot stress enough is about having patience with stutters. When you’re talking to someone with a stutter it is crucial to remember that they are trying to speak. They aren’t messing you around, they are genuinely trying to talk to you. Please don’t finish their sentences for them. People think that finishing a stutterers sentence for them helps, but it just makes them feel so much worse.
If a person stuttering annoys you, I can guarantee that the stutterer themself is more annoyed. Patience is key. Don’t rush someone or bombard them with questions and comments. Relax and let then conversation flow is what I say.
You’re not alone
Stuttering doesn’t just affect you. 68 million people in the world have a stutter. It is nothing to be ashamed of. There are a lot of resources out there to help you manage/ get over a stutter. Most of these, unfortunately, will not work but you will eventually find something that helps you control your stutter. I use Rhythmical thinking to manage my stutter which is a technique I found myself. There are a lot of organisations that can help with your stutter too. In last weeks blog, we mentioned the AIS when talking about Bruce Willis’s story. If you haven’t checked them out I highly recommend you do so. They have worked closely with stutterers like Bruce Willis and Samuel .L. Jackson in the past.
If you have any questions about stuttering or have any stories/ experiences you want to share please get in touch. I always love learning about other peoples stories! Be your own Stutterspiration!
That is all I want to talk about in today’s blog. Thank you all for all the support you have given this series and I hope you’ve enjoyed it. What do you think of the series? Would you like it to come back in the future? Have you learned something new from the series? What do you think about the effects stuttering brings, be it positive or negative? Let me know what you think in the comments or on our Facebook page!
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A lot of people know Bruce Willis from his roles in films such as Die Hard, Glass and The Sixth Sense to name but a few but did you know that Bruce Willis used to have a stutter? The fact that Bruce Willis, a very successful actor, has lived with and got past having a stutter just goes to further my firm belief that a stutter does not stop you doing anything in life. In today’s blog, we will be looking at his story.
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Today’s blog is going to be the eleventh blog in the Stuttering in Mainstream Media series and is going to be about Bruce Willis’s story. I find Bruce’s story a really inspiring and emotional one and it is a great story to see the effect that a stutter leaves on a person even after they have gotten over it. The emotion and body language that Bruce shows when he talks about his childhood and growing up with a stutter helps give everyone an insight into what living with a stutter is actually like. The video below is taken from a speech Bruce made at the AIS (American Institue for Stuttering) Gala in 2016 and helps back up the points that I have made. When you watch the video the sheer emotion and passion that Bruce has when talking about Stuttering and the work that AIS do is truly inspirational.
Bruce started stuttering when he was around 9 years old. Bruce describes himself as a shy child due to the problems he had with his speech. An Article published by Making Peace with Life, http://www.makingpeacewithlife.com/uncategorized/how-bruce-willis-has-overcome-stuttering/, helps us to take a deeper look at Bruce’s story and how he managed to overcome his stutter. It is important to remember that Bruce does still stutter from time to time, it is just now he knows how to manage it. Due to the control that Bruce has over his stutter, it is no longer an issue for him.
Bruce’s stutter did have quite a large effect on Bruce’s school life. To try and avoid speaking situations, Bruce started to skip classes in high school. This led to him starting to get into drama and different plays. As mentioned in the article he ” would play roles such as the joker so that he can bring smiles to the audience’s face without much talking”. He became a bit of a class clown by pulling pranks and making jokes in front of his classmates as a way of compensating for his stutter.
Over time Bruce started to get more confident speaking in front of a crowd due to all of his plays. He found that when he was acting on stage, he did not stutter. The interesting thing was that even though he would not stutter on stage, as soon as he came off he would start stuttering again. Around 1 or 2 years after finishing school Bruce managed to get a place at Montclair State College in New Jersey, “as a drama student.”At the college one of his professors, Jerry Rockwood discovered Bruce’s potential as an actor and advised him to start going to speech therapy. The combination of acting and speech therapy was what led Bruce to help manage his stutter.
Bruce says that stuttering helped make him a “better person”. In the article, he talks about how his stutter led to him being “more compassionate towards other people’s pain and struggles.” He goes on to say that his stutter led to him discovering an “inner strength” that he did not know that he had before.
Bruce’s story is an incredible story to look at and it does go to show that you can still be successful even with a stutter. To reinforce the point that I have made numerous times in this series, a stutter does not stop you doing what you want to do. A stutter may make it a little bit more difficult but I’m sure we can all agree that hard work does ultimately pay off.
To finish this blog off I want us to revisit a quote Bruce made in the Youtube video I included in this blog from the AIS Gala in 2016. In his speech, Bruce mentions a quote made by Eleanor Roosevelt. The quote itself is “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”. Don’t stop speaking just because one or two people made fun of your stutter, You have a voice – make sure you use it. Your stutter does not make what you have to say any less valuable, remember that.
Thank you for reading today’s blog! What do you all think? I have only briefly covered Bruce Willis’s story, there is still plenty more to look at if you are interested. What else would you like to see covered in this series? Did you know acting can be a form of a stuttering solution? Let me know what you think of the blog and any thoughts/questions you have in the comments below!
Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good day,
Sweeney’s Blogs
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Today’s blog is going to be the 10th blog in the Stuttering in Mainstream Media and is going to be about the Do’s and Don’ts of Stuttering. Even though I have mentioned in a few previous blogs about how stuttering affects everyone differently, there are a few trends that have emerged. In this blog, I will be briefly talking about some of these trends and just bullet pointing others. If you can think of any that I haven’t included please let me know. I have seen a few other posts about the do’s and don’ts of stuttering but they only focus on stuttering in children, whereas stuttering affects people of all age.
Do’s
Allow the person to finish their sentence, don’t interrupt them.
Be Patient – if a person is stuttering, please give them time to finish. Rushing someone who stutters will make them stutter more and will cause them to get stressed.
Encourage a person with a stutter to speak, don’t leave them alone in the quiet.
If someone is stuck on a word and cannot get it out, try rewording the sentence/question? Rewording the question allows the stutterer to think of a different word that they may not get stuck on.
If you’re meeting someone new, mention that you have a stutter if you think it is important too
Live a normal life – A stutter doesn’t stop you doing what you want to do in life
Maintain eye contact and concentration when talking to someone with a stutter
Reassure a stutterer if they are nervous
Speak to a speech therapist about your stutter
Don’t
Allow a person with a stutter to isolate themselves.
Be embarrassed about stuttering
Criticise /Mock their stutter – There are some things that you just cannot joke/ have banter about. A stutter is one of them.
Don’t say phrases like “slow down” or relax”. Even though they sound like you’re helping, they just make it worse.
Finish a sentence for them – People think it helps but all it does is make a stutterer feel worse about themselves and think that their voice is less valuable than someone else.
Lose your patience if someone is stuttering a lot
That’s all for today’s blog! Even though this blog may seem a bit shorter than the others in the series it is still very important. Like I said at the start of this blog if you can think of any points that I have missed, please let me know and I will add them. There are lots of guides out there for stuttering but they are mostly aimed at children. I wanted to do a series that was targeting every age.
In regards to the future of this series, I think that I am going to keep it going for a little bit longer. The polls that I ran last week came back fairly in favour of keeping the series going so I will do around 2/3 more blogs for it and then I will put it on hold for a while. I am not 100% sure at the minute what the next series will be but when it comes closer to the time I will run a few polls on the Facebook page.
Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a great day!
Sweeney’s Blogs
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Musharaf’s Story is a really interesting story that was brought to life through the Bristish Documentary series, Educating Yorkshire. In this blog, we are going to be looking at what his story is and then we are going to look at the reactions that people had to his story on the TV show Gogglebox.
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Today’s blog is going to be the 9th blog in the Stuttering in Mainstream Media and is going to be about Musharaf Asghar’s story. Musharaf, like most teenagers with a stutter, got bullied a lot through school. This bullying dramatically lowered his self-confidence and worsened his stutter. The story that the show focuses on is how Musharaf is preparing to do his GCSE English Oral exam.
Here is the video of Musharaf’s Story:
Close to the start of the video Musharaf tells us that when he stutters he feels like someone is keeping his mouth closed. I found this quite interesting at first because it is not similar to most of the other definitions that I have heard and made. I think that his form of stuttering is a mix of the effects of bullying on his confidence and the type of stuttering where you just cannot get your words out. I feel like this what Musharaf meant by someone is keeping his mouth shut.
The effects of bullying on someone who stutters do go a lot deeper than most people think. Coming from a background where I have experienced this I feel like I can give a fair view on the matter. If we take it at face value the bullying does obviously have an effect on your self-confidence. This damage to your self-confidence can make you stutter more which makes you feel more nervous about speaking. This creates a mental cycle of being scared to speak in case you stutter and get bullied for it.
The people who are around you when you are being bullied also carry a huge effect on the person stuttering. As more people find out that you have been/ are being bullied for your stuttering then it just makes the anxiety even worse. It gets to a point where even if you are with people you trust you just do not want to talk anymore in fear of being bullied for stuttering. It is a really bad cycle that can be really hard to break.
Close to the start of the video we can also see a coping technique that Musharaf uses to help manage his stutter. When he is answering the question in class he taps out each word that he speaks. I like to think of this as a simplified Rhythmical Thinking approach. Sounding out the words helps you to break down each sentence word by word it can help reduce the number of times you stutter. It is not a permanent fix but it can be very helpful for situations like answering a question in class.
The video also shows us how Mr.Burton tries to help Musharaf with his stutter. He uses a technique that he saw in the King’s Speech which involves speaking when listening to music. This style of stutter solution is a mix of distraction and Rhythmical Thinking. If you want to see more about Rhythmical Thinking you can view the blog here, https://sweeneysblog.com/2019/02/07/rhythmical-thinking-a-stuttering-solution/, but the basic of it is is you think of a beat in your head, speak to it then slowly increase the speed until you get back to speaking at a normal pace.
The Distraction solution is where you distract yourself from thinking about speaking. If we look at this case Musharaf is listening to music. While he is listening to music and reading the poem he hasn’t got time to think about/ worry about stuttering. Although this style of reducing the number of times you stutter may seem basic it does work very well if executed under the right circumstances.
Musharaf does go on to do his presentation very well and he does achieve the grade that he needs to get into college. The story itself is quite a positive one that does make you think of the effect a stutter does have on people. At the end of the video, when Musharaf is doing his speech to the other students, we can see how emotional all of his fellow students are getting. In my opinion, they can see the courage that he has and the determination he has to still speak even with his stutter. It just adds to a comment that I made on a blog a few weeks back, a stutter doesn’t stop you doing anything, the only thing that stops you is yourself.
We’ll now take a brief look at what the Gogglebox reactors thought of Musharaf’s story.
If you watched the video the whole way through you can see how their reactions change. At the start of the video, we can see a few of the reactors getting annoyed at Musharaf when he is struggling to get the words out. Phrases like “spit it out” are thrown about and they are not called for. People do need to start appreciating the effort that some people go to just to say a few words. It would be easy for Musharaf to just not say anything because of his stutter but he still tries, which shows a real judge of character.
Patience is one of the skills that most people do need to work on. I am not trying to have a go at the reactors in this video but I think that it goes to show the cultural “norms” that do need to change. As soon as they find out that Musharaf has a severe stutter they are more than happy to wait for him to speak but if they weren’t told they would continue to be angry at him stuttering. It does give us a look into how people do address people who stutter and how we do need to try and change it for the better.
Closer to the end of the video we do see them appreciate the confidence and determination that Musharaf has. We see them get emotional over him doing his speech and see them really appreciate what he has gone through. The main point of this part of the blog is to say, be patient. You never know of the struggles going on in someone’s mind when they are speaking so take some time to understand.
That’s all I want to talk about in today’s blog! Thank you all for reading! What do you all think? Have you heard Musharaf’s Story? What do you think of speaking while listening to music as a stuttering solution? What techniques do you use/ have you seen to help manage a stutter?
A quick few messages just before finishing today’s blog. Musharaf is now doing talks on his story and about his stutter. Although I haven’t been to one of his talks I have heard that they are very good and very insightful. I highly recommend seeing one if you are interested.
There is also a poll up now on the Facebook group regarding the future of this series. I am not sure whether to keep the series going or whether to put it on pause for a while. Vote in the Facebook poll on what you think should happen to the series!
Thanks again for reading!
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Growing up people always said to me that I could never be a teacher because of my stutter. I never understood this and I always questioned them saying why would my stutter hold me back? They never had a valid point to make in their answers and it led me to challenge their assumptions. Roll on to now and I have been a Lifeguard and Swimming Teacher for nearly 3 years.
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Today’s blog is going to be the eighth blog in the Stuttering in Mainstream Media and is going to focus on how my stutter has affected me in my jobs as a Lifeguard and a Swimming Teacher. I am the type of person who likes to surpass people expectations. As mentioned above when I was younger people always told me that I couldn’t be a teacher due to my stutter when in reality the only thing holding me back from teaching was myself. Of course, my stutter can make the job harder in some cases but that doesn’t affect my ability as a teacher. That is one of the main points of this blog, don’t let a stutter hold you back in life. A stutter doesn’t stop you from doing things, however, it does alter your journey.
I completed my first lifeguarding course back in June 2016 and got a job as a Lifeguard in my local Swimming Pool around three months after. My position in work is exactly the same as any of the other lifeguards there, my stutter doesn’t change my job, however, it does change the way that I go about some things. In a job such as lifeguarding, there are obviously going to be some minor changes in how each lifeguard does things.
It can be quite hard to explain how stuttering has changed my job as most of the changes that I have discovered are all usually quite small. The major changes that I find are when it comes to talking to members of the public or other members of staff. I’ve been in my job for around three years now and I love learning new roles like how to work reception and how to teach in different ways. I started to notice the first major changes in my job when I was covering behind reception for a few minutes when I was still new at the pool.
Most of the customers in the pool recognised that I had a stutter if I started stuttering when serving them and they were really patient and polite about it, however, there were some customers who didn’t have the same attitude towards my stutter. It was very rare that a customer was ever rude to me behind the desk however like you have in any job there were one or two. There was one person who came to the desk and because I got stuck stuttering on a few words she started saying phrases like “spit it out” or “hurry up and get on with it”. After they said those phrases I didn’t really know how to react. As I was in work I had to stay professional but I just couldn’t comprehend why this customer was being so rude. Like I said previously nearly all of the customers coming to the pool were great but one or two of them really make you think.
The second major change is when it comes to communicating with members of the public on poolside. As you would expect in our jobs as lifeguards we do have to enforce the pool rules if members of the public are not abiding by them. In some cases when I would talk to them I would start stuttering. Most of the customers again were more than patient with me but it started to make me feel nervous to speak at times.
To my knowledge see there are few if any policies in workplaces when it comes to stuttering. how I see it is that as there is such a massive focus being aimed at mental health and stress management nowadays that we should try and bring some other subjects like stuttering back into focus as well. Stuttering and stress/ mental health do go hand in hand in some cases. Stuttering can lead to massive self-esteem and self-confidence issues in the world of work. The question that I like to ask is why hasn’t anything really been done to help people with a stutter in the world of work?
Being a Swimming teacher can be one of the most rewarding jobs going in my eyes. I love my job as a Swimming Teacher as I get to see swimmers progress from being scared to go into the water to doing 100 meter swims without stopping. Watching people progress through the different levels/stages of swimming is truly a great thing to watch and it is the reason why I used to love teaching so much.
In my experience of teaching, my stutter has never limited my ability to do my job. As you can expect I do sometimes get stuck on the odd word or I may repeat myself a few times but it doesn’t affect my ability as a teacher. When teaching younger children you automatically think that they will notice you stuttering and try and mimic it but out of the few hundred that I taught, I can only remember one or two doing it. Even those one or two kids weren’t even mimicking it maliciously, they just didn’t understand what a stutter was at that point.
One of the only changes that I noticed as a teacher with a stutter was how some of the parents would act to my teaching. There have been a few cases over the past three years where a parent has asked me if I should be allowed to teach as I have a stutter. This is where the main problems with stuttering come into play. Like I mentioned in a previous blog the only thing that stops you when you have a stutter is yourself and to a degree the people surrounding you. There is such an ingrown stigma in modern society about mental health and topics like stuttering that at times it feels like you are fighting a losing battle.
The fact that I stutter does not change my ability to teach. It may alter the way that I do some things but overall the outcome is the same. When I started to plan this blog I was thinking of all the problems that I have faced in my job and the realisation hit me. The problems that I have faced in my job are down to a lack of understanding of what a stutter is from a third party. I could list all of the issues that I have faced teaching and lifeguarding with a stutter but they all come down to this same link.
Most people do not think about the effect a stutter has on people because it is so rarely brought up in the media and in conversations. Stuttering, in my opinion, doesn’t get the credit it deserves as living with a stutter can be really tough. If you spend just 5-10 minutes talking to a person who has a stutter about their stutter it would start to make more sense. The stigma around a stutter can be linked in some way to the stigma in mental health. They both stem from a lack of understanding and just as mental health is changing now the focus has been put on it, stuttering could do with the same focus.
That’s all I want to talk about in today’s blog. I hope you all enjoy the blog and have a great day! Let me know what you think of it in the comments or on our Facebook page!
Thanks for reading,
Sweeney’s Blogs
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Did you know that Darth Vader’s actor had a stutter? The man behind one of Hollywoods most recognisable voices was mute for nearly eight years! These two facts alone help paint a brief insight into the pain that a stutter can cause a person. A stutter affects more than just your ability to speak, it affects you as a person.
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Today’s blog is going to be the sixth blog in the Stuttering in Mainstream Media series! In today’s blog, we are going to be taking a look at how James Earl Jones, one of Hollywoods greats, story. We are going to take a look into how his stutter has affected him growing up and how he manages his stutter when filming for films and when he is on Broadway. The man is a stutterspiration in all essence of the word, what he has done whilst having a stutter is truly amazing!
Most people often forget that James Earl Jones, the man behind the voices of Darth Vader and Mufasa, had a terrible stutter in his childhood. An article that I found in the Health section of The Daily Mail, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1255955/James-Earl-Jones-My-stutter-bad-I-barely-spoke-years.html, takes a closer look into his story. As we look into James’s story it is crucial to remember that despite having a stutter, he is still very successful in life.
The article and indeed the video above show us that growing up James felt that it was easier to remain quiet and some could say hidden to avoid being judged due to his stutter. The article points out a very interesting point. James Earl Jones, a man with one of the most recognisable voices in Hollywood was “almost mute as a child for eight years” due to his stutter. That just goes to show the inherent fear that a stutter can cause on an individual.
When talking about growing up with a stutter James talks about how he used to feel like he was “cursed”. The fear of not being able to talk tat a stutter creates truly is phenomenal. It is something that you cannot fully understand unless you actually go through it but it is something that you can begin to appreciate. Having the courage to push forward even when you cannot get the word out at times is shows a real mark of character. It is often the confidence we have in ourselves that dictates the effect that a stutter will have on our lives.
Further on in the article James talks about how “stuttering is painful”. He recalls when he had to read in Sunday school as a child and how the other children were ” falling on the floor with laughter” simply because he struggled to get the words out. This hits home quite hard for me as I was often in the same position growing up with a stutter, I remember going through Secondary school Engish classes, every time the teacher would pick someone to read I would pray to be invisible. The fear that a stutter can muster in a child is truly worrying. However, if we focus on the negatives then no change will be made. We need to look at the positives in life and in this case James’s story to see how we can help manage a stutter and live a “normal life” (whatever that means!).
Now as James mentioned above he got over a stutter using Poetry. Now poetry and other creative writing processes are very good techniques to use to help manage a stutter. I often use poetry when I am stuttering a lot as a way for me to centre myself. It gives me time to relax, think about what I want to say and then the time to actually say it.
Dictating your own work can be very very useful. If you haven’t tried the technique before I highly recommend it. If you don’t have anything to read then starting off is simple. Simply write 5-10 lines about yourself and then practise saying them out loud. Start off saying them by yourself and then as you practise more and more get other people in to listen to you. Eventually, you will be able to speak the lines without reading the paper. From this point, you start to practise reading the lines whilst also looking at people. It is a gradual process but patience is key for the endgame.
Another method that James said he uses to help manage his stutter is shouting at the empty seats before a play. Now there are quite a lot of people that use aggression as a form of managing their stutter. Personally, I haven’t used this method much in the past, I have tried it, but not for a long while. I will do a blog on it further down the line as I know Samuel L. Jackson uses it to help manage his stutter.
The last thing that I want to talk about in regards to James’s story is some final words he said at the end of the Daily Mail article. He says “When you are mute, you become a good listener – it’s all one-way.” Now even though I have not been mute I do really empathise with this statement. Now as a stutterer myself I have learned how to be a good listener. I’m not going to go into it in too much detail in this blog as I do want to do a whole blog on it in a few weeks but there is a link between someone who stutters and their listening ability. I find it quite an interesting link to learn about which is why I want to leave it for a future blog.
That’s all I want to talk about in today’s blog! What do you all think? Did you know James Earl Jones had a stutter? What do you think about the poetry method of managing a stutter? Let me know what you think!
One of the most important points that I want to leave this blog on is that a stutter shouldn’t hold you back. James Earl Jones is the prime example of this point. Granted his stutter nearly made him mute for eight years but he got past it. He didn’t let it control his life. He became the voices of Darth Vader and Mufasa with a stutter, so the question stands, what’s stopping you? Remember failure isn’t a bad thing, it’s a learning curve!
Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in the next one!
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How can you compare Stuttering to a printer? How can people understand a stutter if they haven’t got one themselves? How can learning about a stutter help treat it? I hope to answer these questions in today’s blog all about a Stuttering Theory I created myself.
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Today’s blog is going to be the fifth blog in the Stuttering in Mainstream Media series and is going to be about The Printer Theory, a theory that I myself created to help visualise what living with a stutter is actually like. The theory itself can be interpreted in a number of different ways so if you interpret it a different way to how I am saying it that is more than fine.
I created The Printer Theory when I was asked to describe what living with a stutter is like to a few of my University friends this year. I had rarely been asked what living with a stutter was like before going to university so I didn’t have an answer ready at the time. This is when I decided to improvise and came up with The Printer Theory. Even though the theory doesn’t cover all aspects of life with a stutter I still think that it is a good place to start.
The first part of The Printer Theory is about the type of stutter where you just cannot get the words out, no matter how hard you try. So let’s say you have a document on the computer that you want to print out. You do all the normal things such as going to options, selecting print and then waiting for the printer to print the document out. Your document starts printing and then you get a paper jam in the printer.
If you have a paper jam then sending another twenty documents to the printer will not do anything, it will just put more pressure on the CPU of the computer and will affect the interrupts happening to the computer which will slow it down. Sending more documents to the computer will do nothing to help the actual problem which is the paper jam. This can easily be related to having a conversation with a person who has a stutter. If they are stuck on a particular word then asking them 20 more questions will do nothing to help them, it will just stress them out and might even lead to them stuttering more.
To fix a paper jam in the printer you would slowly find out the problem and then try a few ways to resolve it. Forcing the paper out when you have a paper jam will not help the issue, this is the exact same as dealing with a stutter. If someone who you are having a conversation with gets stuck on a word then you definitely should not try to force them to speak, they are trying they just cannot get the words out. What you need to do is simple.
The first step to helping someone who cannot get the words out is to actually realise that they are stuck on a word. If you recognise that someone is struggling then it makes it easier for you to understand and easier for them to get over it. The next step is to try a few different solutions. The first solution I recommend is maybe rewording the question that you asked them. Usually, if a person is simply stuck on one word then if you reword the question they will not even have to try and say it. There are lots of other techniques you can try if this doesn’t work but the key is to be patient, do not rush someone with a stutter as that will help no one.
One of the next links that a stutter has to a printer is when it comes to the order of entities. When you print something out, it is printed in a set order, this is the exact same as the way we speak. If the pages were printed in a random order then we would have to spend a lot of time simply working out the order of the pages and then what they are actually trying to tell us, this works the same with how we speak. We form sentences in a way that they are easy to understand and our words are in a logical order.
Just because a printer may take a long time to print out a particular page, it doesn’t mean that you write it out to try to beat the printer. If a printer was taking a while to print something out then you would wait patiently until it was finished, this links perfectly with a stutter. If a person is taking a while to say a particular word, sentence it does not give you the right to try and speak for them or just rush them into finishing. Rushing someone to speak when they have a stutter severely lowers their self-confidence and leads them to feel more embarrassed when they do eventually stutter.
This links in well to one of the main problems I have when speaking to people when they know that I have a stutter. Most people who do not have a stutter or who haven’t been close to someone who has a stutter think that finishing sentences for people who are struggling helps them out, it actually makes us feel useless. What people don’t actually think about, and this is not a criticism to people, it is just a fact, is that when we are stuttering we are trying really hard to get the words out. If you just jump in and finish the sentence for them, even if you do it with good intentions, then it makes us feel worthless. This paragraph is not meant to be having a go at anyone it is simply explaining something that most people don’t usually think of.
As you can see from the blog above there are lots of different links you can make between a printer and a person who stutters. There are indeed a lot more links that you can find but I have explained the main ones that I wanted to talk about in this blog. If you do find anymore and want to talk them through feel free to send me a message, I’ll more than happily respond!
Thanks for reading today’s blog! What do you all think? Next time you speak to someone with a stutter try and use a few of the points that I made today. Don’t rush them, be patient and please don’t finish sentences for them. I hope you all have a great week and remember to keep Highlighting the I in Difference!
Thanks again for reading and for all of the support,
Sweeney’s Blogs
Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!
Stuttering affects lots of different people in lots of different ways. One of the main factors to think of when it comes to stuttering is how people react to you. Teachers in school are there to support and mentor you so how do you react when one of them makes fun of your stutter? This is something that I have gone through and I will discuss it further in this blog.
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Today’s blog is going to be the fourth blog in my Stuttering in Mainstream Media series and is going to focus on when I was picked on by a teacher in school for stuttering. I loved school and learning when I was younger and even though I encourage everyone to look at the positives all the time there are times when you need to look at the negatives to learn and develop from them. This blog is going to look at how a teacher picked on my stutter, how I reacted at the time and what we can learn from it.
The incident itself happened when I was in year 8 back in Secondary School. Me and my classmates in 8f were in a History lesson at the time. F was one of the top sets in the year. The class was close to the start of the year and our teacher asked us what we think we should learn about this year. Most of the class asked if we would learn about World War 2 or about Slavery and I would just sit and listen. I used to feel quite scared about speaking up in class due to my stutter but I finally thought I would give speaking a go.
I had been a big fan of reading encyclopaedias and history books at the time and had starting learning a lot about Oliver Cromwell. I had read all the books I had on him and didn’t understand the formal articles that were published online. I was really interested in his story however so decided to try and ask our teacher if we would be learning about him. Before I go further into the story I am not going to be mentioning the teachers name in theis blog as that is not the point of the blog, the point of the blog is to learn from my experience and how it affected me, it is not meant as an attack to the teacher in question.
I raised my hand and the teacher said my name. I started off asking the question, “Miss, do we get the chance to learn” when I just couldn’t get anymore words out. When I finally got the confidence to carry on every word I said was full of stutters, “abbbooout Oliver Cccrrrom Cromwell this year?” The question itself was easy to understand even though I stuttered a number of times. Instead of answering the question though the teacher decided to stop, make everyone quiet and then turned to speak to me.
She looked at me and said ” Jjjjames ssspeak prop-er-ly.” I just sat there staring at her in pure shock. I didn’t know how to react or what to do at the time. School was a place where I felt safe growing up and it is somewhere that I really enjoyed to be in. I couldn’t understand why someone in her position would make fun of me in front of the whole class. The rest of the class went completely silent too, no one knowing what to say or how to react.
This lesson was the very first lesson of the day. I didn’t speak again until lunchtime that day, around 4 hours after the lesson happened. No one really noticed that I wasn’t speaking until we all went out to get lunch. I was with my mates on the yard when a boy from my class comes over and starts telling everyone about what happened in History. I didn’t say a word when he was telling the story, I just listened and stared in the distance. When he finished the story everyone just turned and looked at me.
I did not know what to do when the boy was telling the story. I did not know how I should have felt, what I should have done, who I should have spoken to, etc. it is why I just stared into the distance, I was lost. After the boy finished telling the story all of my friends looked the same. Some spoke to me like they felt sorry for me, one or two seemed like they had genuine empathy for me and then the rest just didn’t react, they just stood there thinking.
It was when two of my good friends, Zac and Dylan, found out that action was taken. Zac and Dylan had been my friends all the way through Primary and Secondary school. They understood the affect that my stutter had on me and that making fun of it or joking about it was not okay. As soon as they found out what happened they came over to see if I was alright and if there was anything they could do.
Aftr speaking to me they went to see our Head of Year to make a complaint against the teacher, something I didn’t know they were going to do at the time. If Zac and Dylan take action there and then then I do not think that anything would have been done about it and I feel like I wouldn’t have gotten over this incident. In their own rights they can be classed as stutterspirations as they took action to help me, a person with a stutter out, when no one asked them too, they simply did it off their own backs. Even though they may not know it but they did a great thing that went a long way to helping me control my stutter.
As lunchtime break ended on that day everyone went back inside ready for afternoon registration. As I was walking back towards my class my Head of Year called me into her office. She informed me that Zac and Dylan came to her with a complaint against my history teacher and they told her what happened. She sat me down and asked me to go through my side of the story.
I took a set in her office and slowly explained everything that happened from the start of the day up to now and how it made me feel. She sat there listening making notes on a notepad. I stopped a few times when telling the story due to stuttering or when I would get a bit emotional going through it. It was at this point that the reality of what actually happened dawned on me.
After we finished discussing what happened she asked if I wanted to go home or if I wanted to stay in school. I said that I want to stay in school as there is only one lesson left in the day and do not want to fall behind on work. She then asked me if I want to make a complaint against the teacher or if I want to swap classes to be taught by a different history. I thanked her for both offers but refused them both. I would stay in the class, to prove to myself that I was strong enough and that I couldn’t be broken by one person.
It took me a while to get back to normal after that day. It took me around two to three days to start answering questions in class again and then around a week or so to start asking questions again. I was lucky that I was a fast learner at the time and that I understood the topics we were studying as I am the type of person that usually has a lot of questions about the work we are doing.
I decided against telling my parents what happened at first. I cannot remember exactly why i decided not to tell them but I think that I thought that if no one spoke about it then it would be forgotten about and then I could move on in some way. They eventually found out through a friend of mines mum at a football game on the following Saturday and then I filled them in on everything that had happened.
My mother decided to write a letter to the school voicing her concerns over the matter and then went in to have a meeting with the headmaster. During the following tutorial session on Monday morning I was called out of my class to go to the headmasters office. When I got there he asked me to sit down and tell him what happened from start to finish so I did. As I was talking through what happened he was just sitting there listening, nodding, trying to understand what happened and how to handle it.
After I had told him everything he got a fellow student to go and get the teacher from her class. When she came into his office, I started shaking, dreading what was going to happen next. He then asked me to repeat everything that I had just told him in front of the teacher. I started telling the story again, looking at her reaction every so often to she how she would react. As soon as I finished the story I closed my eyes for a few seconds to stop myself from breaking down and then turned to see what was going to happen.
Our headteacher made the teacher apologise to me and then he asked her to go back to her class. After she left the room he asked me if I was alright and if I wanted to go home. i said that I would stay in school thank you but I just need a few minutes to pick myself back up and then I would be find to go back to lessons. He nodded and agreed and told me that if I felt like I needed to leave any class for a few minutes then it would be more than fine and he would inform my other teachers on what had happened.
That is the story of how a teacher picked on me in front of the whole class back in Secondary school. I have never told the story to anyone since leaving school so it was quite nice to finally air it out and explain what actually happened. We can learn quite a lot from the story, even though it seems very negative and bleak there are a few interesting lessons we can take from it.
Firstly speaking out is very important. I was too scared to speak out about what happned at first but was very lucky that my good friends Zac and Dylan were there to do it for me. Speaking out takes a lot of courage but it is the only way that change will ever happen. We can’t just sit around and wait for change to happen, if we think something is wrong we have t speak up and try and make a change for the better. Speaking out seems like a very basic and easy thing but it can be one of the hardest things you can do. People usually don’t understand things unless you explain it to them.
Taking action is very important. Always try and take action yourself and if you see someone in trouble then try to help them out. Be the person that Zac and Dylan were for me. They saw that I was struggling and they stepped in. Always try your best to help people out, you never know they might return the favour in the future.
Secondly you can always pick yourself back up. After the teacher made fun of me I thought that I would never be able to speak in front of people again. It shook me to my core that someone in a position such as a teacher would pick on me in front of my whole class. It took me a while to understand that if I didn’t speak in class again then the only person it would impact on would be myself and I couldn’t let myself down because of someone else’s mistake.
That is all I want to talk about in today’s blog! I know today’s blog was a bit longer than what I usually do but I think it is important to go through the story and talk about how it affected me and how you can pick yourself back up again after someone knocks you down. What do you all think? Did you enjoy reading today’s blog? Have you got any stuttering stories you want to share? What do you think of what the teacher did? How would you react if it happened to you? Let me know your answers to the questions and any other thoughts you had on the blog in the comments or get in touch with me through the Sweeney’s Blogs Facebook page.
Thanks for reading and I hope you all enjoyed! Remember keep Highlighting the I in Difference!
Sweeney’s Blogs
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What is a stutterspiration? How do they help people who stutter? What does it take to be a stutterspiration?
Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!
Today’s blog is going to be the fourth blog in the Stuttering in Mainstream Media series and is going to be about Stutterspirations. Stutterspiration is a word that I have created to help distinguish a certain type of people. A Stutterspiration is a person with a stutter who inspires other people who have a stutter. The main purpose of this blog is to take a deeper look into what a stutterspiration actually is and how they help influence others.
The interesting thing when it comes to stutterspirations is that they can be found in almost all walks of life. A stutter does not discriminate which means that we can find people with stutters in all aspects of the media. In this blog, we are going to briefly talk about a person who I class as a stutterspiration and how they earned success off their talent alone.
The first person that I ever classed as a Stutterspiration is Harrison Craig. Harrison Craig is an Australian Singer who found his fame by winning the second season of The Voice Australia. Harrisons audition is where we first found out about his stutter. If you have not seen his audition or maybe want to rewatch it then you are more than welcome to click on the video below.
One of the things that I find the most interesting with Harrison’s story is that he does not get through via sympathy, he gets through simply down to pure talent. If anyone is not familiar with how the voice works then the premise is simple. Contestants sing on stage with the four coaches turned away from them, if the coach likes what they hear then they press their button and turn their chair. The contestant then gets to decide which team to go on based off which judge/ judges turn around and then progress through to the next stage of the competition.
Now as I said previously Harrisons got through his audition and then indeed went on to win the competition down to pure talent alone. Even though he has a stutter and struggles to full sentences at times without stuttering, his singing is still faultless. This just goes to show that having a stutter should not hold you back, you can still be successful even if you can’t speak without stopping sometimes.
Harrison’s story helped me realise quite a few things about how I approached my life when it came to my stutter. The fact that Harrisons pursued his dream and went on live TV with a stutter solidified the idea in my head that my stutter should not hold me back in life. I started to approach life in a more confident way and started doing things that I wanted to do. This confidence boost was one of the reasons I became a Swimming Teacher and has allowed me to teach numerous swimmers over the past 3 years. A small portion of my achievement has to be given to people like Harrison who showed us that it is possible.
I have had a lot of different people in my life tell me that I cannot do certain things due to the fact that I have a stutter. Harrison’s story is a perfect example as to why they are completely wrong. A stutter does not limit you in regard to what you want to do in life. The only thing that does limit you if you have a stutter is yourself. A stutter may make you take longer to say some things but that does not mean that your voice is any less important than someone else’s.
That is all I want to talk about in today’s blog. Thank you all for reading! What do you all think? Did you know Harrison’s story before reading this blog? Do you know of any stutterspirations in your life? What attributes do you think leads to a person being a stutterspiration? Let me know what you think and any other comments you have about my blogs in the comments of this blog or on our Facebook page.
Thank you all for reading and I hope to see you all in the next blog! Have a great week and remember to Highlight the I in difference!
Sweeney’s Blogs
Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!
Ever wondered if age had an effect on if someone stuttered? Do more men stutter? Do men outgrow stutters more than women do?
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Today’s blog is going to be the second blog in the Stuttering in Mainstream Media series. This blog is going to cover whether age and gender have an impact on if a person stutters or not. It is very important to understand what stuttering is and how it affects different people before we start looking at how stutters are covered in mainstream Media as it allows us to go in with a more balanced view.
I wasn’t originally going to go into the contributing factors in this series but after a few questions asked in the last blog by Sarah Chorley on our Facebook page (thank you for the feedback and the questions!). I am more than happy to tailor what content is covered in each of these blogs to what you all want to see so if you have any ideas or thoughts on what you would like me to cover then please get in touch!
Gender is surprisingly one of the largest factors to look at when finding the difference in people who stutter. I originally didn’t think gender had an influence on people having a stutter but the facts tell a completely different story. An article by The Stuttering Association called On the Gender Factor in Stuttering, can be found here: https://www.stutteringhelp.org/gender-factor-stuttering, provides an in-depth view on how gender and a few factors do have an effect on if a person stutters or not.
What I really like about this article is that it talks about gender differences in the number of people stuttering in different generations. it allows us to look at the factors of gender and age at the same time. The first statistic we are going to be looking at is the difference between male and females at primary school age. The article tells us that there is a difference between the genders, providing us with a male-to-female ratio of 2:1 for children in primary school.
This difference may seem very small but when we put it into context the numbers can be alarming. Let us use a class size of 30, 15 boys and 15 girls for an example. For this example, we are going to say that 5 girls in the class have a stutter. If 5 girls in the class have a stutter it means that 10 out of the 15 boys in the class have a stutter. The ratio shows us that for every 1 girl that has a stutter, theoretically speaking, 2 boys would have a stutter. This statistic is crazy and it just gets more interesting in older people.
The article tells us that for people who are older the male-to-female ratio increase to 4:1 or even greater. Putting this into a very basic example, if we have for every 100 females who have a stutter, there will be 400 or more men that will also have a stutter. This ratio of quadruple the difference between genders is really interesting and caught me completely off-guard.
There are even more alarming statistics in the article which you’re more than welcome to read from the link provided but the ones that surprise me is in regard to stutter recovery. Apparently, men are more likely to develop chronic stutters than women. This can be traced to several different factors. Start, the Stuttering Treatment and Research Trust, https://www.stuttering.co.nz/news/why-are-males-more-likely-to-stutter/, help provide us with a few different reasons behind the difference between men and women.
They explain to us that females are more likely to naturally outgrow their stutters compared to males. The reasons for this as well as the reasons behind men stuttering more than women have not been identified as of yet. It is a topic that is under research and each experiment and researcher has their own view and opinion. It is agreed by nearly all industry professionals that if you or anyone you know does suffer from a stutter then it is best if they seek professional help.
Professional help for stuttering can usually be good as it can help us locate the reason why we stutter and then we can work to combat it. The main problem arises when it comes down to which treatment style works for you. I will be doing a blog on different stuttering solutions in the future but I do have one up on the page already. The blog that I have already written about a stuttering solution is called Rhythmical Thinking and it can be found here: https://sweeneysblog.com/2019/02/07/rhythmical-thinking-a-stuttering-solution/. The blog talks about a coping technique I used, how it works and how it helped me. Give it a read if you haven’t already!
That’s all I want to talk about in today’s blog! Thank you all for reading and I hope you’ve enjoyed it! I will be in Rhodes from the 3rd-10th of July so I may be unable to respond to comments as quickly as I usually do. I will try to answer questions as quickly as I can but I will be on holiday so apologies if it takes a little bit longer.
What do you all think fo today’s blog? Did you think that age or gender had an influence on having a stutter before reading the blog? Has anything I have talked about in this blog surprised you? Why do you think men stutter more than women? Let me know what you think in the comments or on our Facebook page! If you have any ideas or thoughts for the future of the series too let me know!
Thank you all for reading and a big thanks for the continued support! Hope you all have a great week and I’ll see you in the next blog coming this Thursday!
Sweeney’s Blogs
Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!
Stuttering, a monumental topic that is often not given the attention it deserves. Many people know people who have a stutter but they really research into what a stutter is and how it can impact someone’s life. This series is going to delve into the world of stutters and reveal another side to the common condition.
Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!
Today’s blog is going to be the first blog in the new series, Stuttering in Mainstream Media. This series is going to really take a look at how a stutter can impact a person’s life, how it is covered in Mainstream Media and how we as a society can take a look at stutters in a new light. One of the biggest questions that arise when looking at stutters and stammers is what really is a stutter?
When it comes to looking at what a stutter really is, there are lots of different possibilities. The NHS,https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stammering/, break down stuttering/stammering into 3 different definitions. The first definition for a stutter is when “your repeat sounds or syllables” of a word. This is usually the most common definition for a stutter and is usually the one that has the most impact on your life.
The second definition the NHS provide is when you “make sounds longer”. An example of this can be with the word, please. People who do not have a stutter will say the word please, simply as the word, please. People who have a stutter, however, tend to extend parts of the word so it can end up sounding like pppppplease. It is usually harder to identify people who stutter this way.
The last definition that we are going to cover in this blog is when “a word gets stuck or doesn’t come out at all”. This type of stuttering is the one that I found hardest to learn to live with. It is one that isn’t usually talked about even though it can lead to a severe decrease in a persons self-confidence and in some cases can lead to people isolating themselves.
As you can see from the three definitions above stuttering/stammering comes in many different forms. There is a common misconception that stuttering does not have much of an effect on people which is something that I am aiming to change. The main objective of this series is to raise awareness into what stutters actually are, to talk about my own experiences about living with a stutter and then to bring in how stutters are covered in the media, on talent shows and in society in general.
That’s all I want to talk about in today’s blog! I hope you’re all looking forward to the blogs in this series as much as I am. Do you have any questions about stuttering that you want answers too? Have you ever had a stutter? Do you know anyone who has a stutter? How has it affected them? Are there any famous people you know who have a stutter? Let me know what you think in the comments or via our Facebook page.
Thank you all for reading today’s blog! I want to say a massive thank you to everyone too as we have now reached over 100 likes on the pages Facebook page. Hope you all have a great week and I’ll see you in the next blog!
Sweeney’s Blogs
Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!
Today’s blog is going to talk over an idea I have for a new blog series that I am hoping to launch in a few weeks. If people do want to see this series then I will start creating plans for the series and then will launch it in a few weeks. At the minute I am planning to temporarily pause the Male Mental Health Series and launch this one.
Currently, I am finding to think of as many ideas for the Male Mental Health series compared to when I first started it and don’t want it to seem like I am just forcing out blogs as that’s not how I want my page to be. In my head now I am thinking that if I pause the series and launch this one for a few weeks then when I start to write more blogs for it they will seem fresher and will have better deeper meanings.
The topic of stuttering has always been a topic that is very close to me. I have had a stutter for as long as I remember and it has impacted my life in numerous ways. The true effects stuttering has on an individual is often overlooked in modern day society, which is a thing that I want to change. The actual effects that a stutter has on a person is much more than simply skin deep. Stuttering can lead to a lot of problems such as self-confidence, job position and social standing to name but a few.
This series would also not be the first time that stuttering has been brought up on my blog page. I talked about my stutter in regards to how a bully used it to bully me in the Personal Experience 1 blog of my Looking into Male Mental Health series. This can be accessed either through the Blogapedia page of my website or through the following link – https://sweeneysblog.com/2019/05/07/looking-into-male-mental-health-blog-4-personal-experience-1/. This blog helps tackle just one example of how a stutter can lead to you being bullied and how it can be used to really lower your self-confidence.
I also talked about having a stutter in one of my earlier blogs which revolved around a ‘Stuttering Solution’ that I created called Rhythmical Thinking. This blog, which can be found here: https://sweeneysblog.com/2019/02/07/rhythmical-thinking-a-stuttering-solution/, talks about a method I use to help reduce the number of times I stutter. The blog links in my history of playing in a brass band and how that helps me when controlling my stutter.
The series that I am thinking of launching, Stuttering in Mainstream Media, will build off the previous points and will talk a lot about how stutters are discussed directly in mainstream media. If the series does go ahead then I will be talking about some of the life stories of famous people, who you may or may not know who have a stutter, how they coped with it, how it may have held them back and the lesson we can take from their story.
I am hoping to look at acts who have auditioned on Talent shows who have a stutter and how it changes the way in which they perform. I will look directly on if having a stutter changed how they were judged in their respective competition, be it in a good way or a bad way. From this then we can analyse to see if we can learn from the people that go on these shows despite having a stutter and see if we can adapt the ways in which they handle themselves into our daily life. I have so many ideas for this series so if people do want to see it then I am more than happy to start planning it soon.
That is all I wanted to talk about in today’s blog! Thank you all for reading! What do you all think? Should I start a series on living with a Stutter? Should it be about living with a stutter in general? Should I cover how stutters are directly covered in Mainstream Media or specifically in one genre of a tv show? Let me know in the comments or via our Facebook Page.
I will be launching a poll on the pages Facebook page to see whether to do this series or not. If you have a minute or two spare then please vote in it, if there is no demand for it then I will not create the series. Whilst you are on the pages Facebook page please leave a quick rating and review, it really helps the page grow!
Thanks for reading and i hope you’ve enjoyed!
Sweeney’s Blogs
Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!
Sweeney's Blogs 