Reclaiming the Dysfluent Disabled Voice

Source: Disability Network

Within stuttering communities, the discussion of whether stuttering should be considered a disability is complex. Some stutterers identify as disabled, and some do not. We at Did I Stutter understand dysfluency through the social model of disability, and identify ourselves as disabled. Conversely, the self-help movement is based on a medical model of stuttering and its followers largely reject the idea that stuttering is a disability. Identifying as disabled is a personal decision that should be the right of all stutterers. However, the portrayal of disability in self-help spaces makes clear the influence that speech pathology has on the self-concept of stutterers.

Some of the most blatantly ableist language I’ve ever heard has been in the context of stuttering self-help groups. When asked if they think stuttering is a disability, stutterers cringe and list off stereotypical characteristics of disabled people as evidence of a standard that they don’t meet. Disabled people, I’ve been told, are helpless. They’re impaired, incapable, and dependent on others. To be disabled is to inhabit a body that is undeniably broken, mangled, and crippled. To be disabled is to give up. Stutterers tell me that they’re not disabled because they can overcome their dysfluency. They can use speech tools and substitutions to pass as fluent. They use person-first language to assert that they are whole, un-afflicted persons when removed from their speech.

In these interactions, I see the deceptive power of speech pathology. SLPs push the narrative that a person can always be brought closer to fluency through therapy. As long as there’s some hope of measured improvement, or recovery, or a cure, to identify as dysfluent is to reject standard of fluency. To call oneself disabled is framed as a choice, and becoming fluent is framed as its alternative.

I understand the appeal of choosing to blend in. Before my physical disability progressed to its current state I had the privilege of invisibility. By staying silent and slipping into the back of the classroom, I could choose to hide those aspects of my identity. Nobody had to know about my illness or my dysfluency unless I decided to let them in. Now that I use a wheelchair full-time, disability is the first thing I telegraph to everyone I meet. I no longer have the freedom to slip my cane into my bag when I feel unsafe or just don’t want to be stared at.

Regardless of the times I wish for invisibility to avoid stress, I’m not at all ashamed to call myself disabled. I am proud of my voice and my body. I am proud of the difference and the community it has brought me, the history I speak with every repetition. When stutterers say their speech isn’t a disability because they haven’t let it define their lives, I understand. And I also think about the first time I called myself a stutterer – how it changed nothing about the sound of my voice, but suddenly I’d stopped fighting to be someone I wasn’t. For the first time, I could imagine someday liking the way I speak.

Today is International Stuttering Awareness Day. Today is a celebration of dysfluent voices, and the power that identity endows. Today, I like the way I speak. 

-Erin