|
In most cases, stuttering impedes a speaker's ability to perform at least some daily activities. The specific activities that a speaker finds challenging to perform vary across individuals. For some people, communication difficulties only are apparent during specific activities, for example, talking on the telephone or talking before large groups. For most others, however, communication difficulties are apparent to varying degrees across a host of activities at home, school, or work. Some speakers may limit the extent to which they participate in certain activities. Such "participation restrictions" often relate to concern over how others might react to disfluent speech. Other speakers may attempt to conceal their disfluent speech from others by re-arranging the words in their intended sentence, pretending to forget what they wanted to say, or declining to speak. Still other speakers may find that people exclude them from participation in certain activities because of stuttering. Clearly, the impact of stuttering on daily life can be affected by how the speaker and others react to the disorder.
Return to Stuttering Homepage
|