Should You Just Accept Your Stuttering?

Just accept your stuttering? Many well-meaning people who stutter and some speech pathologists are now suggesting that you make peace with your stuttering. They realize that they are not doing anything wrong and it is not their fault. This is true. They also come to believe that they have no hope for relief from their stuttering. They have tried therapy many times in school and privately and have not had success. This is not true. They do have hope!

Why you were told to accept your stuttering

Modern stuttering treatment programs have been shown to be very successful when delivered in an intensive setting by someone who has been trained to deliver the program as the developer intended it to be implemented.  Only those speech pathologists who seek out specialist training from clinicians who are comfortable with these programs have access to this training

Most general speech pathologists do not have this training. Currently, few graduate schools even require classes, seminars, and clinics in the area of fluency because the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association no longer requires training in stuttering treatment. This certification body concentrates on more popular disorders such as articulation, language, and swallowing.

As a result, specialized training programs in stuttering are few and far between. The well-meaning general speech pathologist does not have access to proper training for stuttering treatment because of this and has no choice but to help the stutterer lessen the burden of the disorder by decreasing feelings of shame and fear by teaching people to accept stuttering and they should have nothing to fear or be embarrassed about. Or course it’s OK to stutter. But it’s also OK to learn how not to stutter and be able to say whatever you want to say whenever.

So the person who stutters has choices:

1) They can accept their stuttering feel better about it when they do or

2) Get effective treatment and resolve the problem once and for all.