Did I Stutter?
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
    • Contributors
  • FAQ
  • Art
  • Forum
  • Contact
  • Resources

The Hierarchy of Dysfluency

9/22/2015

4 Comments

 
Picture
In the course of the advocacy work done on this website, the authors, this writer included, have brushed over how dysfluency means different things in different social contexts to distinct forms of dysfluency. There are differences between blocking on words, between finding enormous difficulty with merely saying anything at all, and between a collection of speech abnormalities that merely delay conversations (such as tics).

The truly irrelevant questions in this mix are those always asked by the non-dysfluent: how often? How long? What causes it?

Dysfluency is not made up of any singular force but a combination of emotion, experience, language, and the situation of the conversation.

The forms it takes and the social respectability those forms are accorded, however, do differ along a hierarchy. Most stigmatized in the stutterer world are the blockers. People who block are those who are the mythic embodiers of a lifetime of ableist trauma over mis-pronounciation. They inherit the memories of being looked at funny every time they mispronounce. In response to this build up, so the story goes, instead of accepting dysfluency or speech glitch, they simply stop, preferring the gap to nothing at all.

I tell that tale in a kind of self-doubting voice with the explicit goal of considering how even with the conversations among stutterers and dysfluent people, there is a kind of pity pointed toward those whose dysfluency causes them to block.

Yes, the hierarchy of dysfluency is real and near the top of this pyramid, yours truly sits, who had received the passing-privilege benefit of early speech therapy that allowed me to learn to pretend to give eye contact as well as time in the debate world which also conditioned me to (sometimes) give eye contact.

The writers for Did I Stutter often sit in this position of not being blockers and not being visibly pitied within their (own stuttering) sub-community.

And the natural benefit to our level of smoothness and respectability might be that the extra confidence gained allows us to write and reflect on the vicissitudes of stuttering oppression.

Perhaps below the blockers are those that do not speak at all and/or those who must use technologies (of various sorts) to do any communication.

Amidst this hierarchy between those that get a word in and those who are delayed in even syllabic locution, is a l relation that is more situational.

Perhaps, if a friend who is a stutterer and I both speak to a speech therapy professional, one can expect the professional to note that the one who fidgets less is the better speaker. Some of us dysfluent folks who may not block on words, may be extremely fidgety and depending on the speaker, this could be read as a “worse” sign of dysfluency and as posing more harm to the conversation.

We know from the accounts of stutterers that some of us have more tics simultaneously with our dysfluency. Others of us may have tics in reaction to other phenomenon about a conversation. While the relevancy of these types of expression to communication at all and whether they present a hindrance may also vary, the dysfluent community is cut across diagonally by tics, which may happen as often with those who otherwise present as fluent as with those who can barely utter a word.

The wider point here is that practices like informed consent and communication access help people at all levels of the hierarchy of dysfluency. But the people at the lowest level may not have the language or the guts to tell others off for judging them over a mispronounciation and may be ever further compounded into a negative position.

Alternatively, those at the bottom of the hierarchy of dysfluency may not be there because of the compounding effects of trauma but may be there because of other changes in voicedness.

It is our job as dysfluent activists to interrogate our own biases and to ask questions of  what and who are present when we speak.

-Zach

4 Comments
ODAT
9/22/2015 10:44:50 am

So basically you've categorized PWD into two classes thereby causing more isolation. Great job!

Sarcasm aside, this doesn't solve anything. It simply says "Yes, there are some who don't pass as fluent". Something I life every day. How about suggesting some solutions? Like how to change ableism within the stuttering community itself?

Reply
OP
9/22/2015 12:18:09 pm

ODAT,

I did list some solutions, recognizing these dynamics is a major start and thinking about how these things structure activism in all sorts of places is a major start to any solution.

Reply
ODAT
10/19/2015 03:20:11 pm

Where exactly have these dynamics been recognized? Based on what I've seen/read therapy, i.e. correcting disfluency, is still the norm within stuttering circles.

Reply
Frank
10/19/2015 11:56:38 am

Word blockers are at a lower end of the "stuttering hierarchy" than word repeaters or word prolongers?? Is this your own personal observation or is this based on research? I personally think that the number and duration of blocks and/or repetitions and/or prolongations and the tension exhibited by the speaker determines the social implications of any individuals stuttering. Fear associated with stuttering will increase tension in the vocal musculature which will lead to blocking and,other stuttering behaviors and this fear is of a social nature. I don't know what you mean by "practices like informed consent and communication access help people at all levels of the hierarchy of dysfluency"??.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Ableism
    Charis
    Cheryl
    Chris
    Communication
    Community Formation
    Conservation
    David
    Disability
    Disability Politics
    Disability Rights
    Dori
    Eli
    Emma
    Empowerment
    Erin
    Gender
    Inspiration
    International Stuttering Awareness Day
    Intersectionality
    ISAD
    Jacquelyn
    Josh
    Language
    Medical Model
    Notes For Allies
    Passing
    Person-first Language
    Podcasts
    Relational Stuttering
    Review
    School
    Self Help
    Sexuality
    Social Model
    Speech Language Pathology
    Speech Therapy
    Stuttering Stories
    The King's Speech
    Time
    Zach

    SUBMIT

    Authors

    We stutter and we're down with it.

    Contributors

    Archives

    October 2017
    August 2017
    February 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

    RSS Feed


Powered by
✕