Situations That May Arouse Fear
Article by Jeams Hinaloc
When a stutterer is called upon to answer a question in front of an audience, such as in a school classroom, at a business meeting, or at a religious gathering, it may cause anxiety that results in a severe bout of stuttering. Are there times when you think it’s just much easier to keep quiet a 15-year-old South African stutterer named Rosanne was asked in a radio interview. She replied, Often, for example, in the classroom situation when I have a nice answer that I know will really earn me marks but I know it’s too much of an effort to actually talk.
A businessman named Simon was also interviewed on the radio program mentioned above. Like Rosanne, Simon has made improvement with the help of speech therapy. But sometimes he still has a bad episode of stuttering. This can be aggravated by the attitude of his audience. If you’re in a board meeting where you have to do a fair amount of speaking and you are having a bad time, the people around that table get very, very impatient,he explains.
In light conversation with friends, she often manages to speak quite fluently. She also shares zealously in evangelizing work that requires approaching strangers uninvited. But she has a fear common to many stutterers speaking before a large audience. “At our meetings,explains Lisa,I seldom manage to put up my hand and answer a question. If I answer at all, it is at most one word or a short sentence. Although it may be little, it is my best. Often, the answers are in my head and on my lips because I always prepare in advance. But my tongue just refuses to cooperate.
A worse experience for some stutterers is having to read aloud. This forces them to use words they would normally avoid. At one of our meetings,”Lisa continues, we are sometimes asked to take turns reading the Scripture texts under discussion. On such occasions I sit in fear, fidgeting, waiting for my turn, not knowing if I will manage to read the text or not. Sometimes I read but cannot pronounce a certain word. Then I just skip it and continue reading.”
Obviously, careful thought needs to be given before encouraging a stutterer to read aloud. Such encouragement could make the stutterer feel worse. Instead, such a person deserves to be warmly commended for doing his or her best.
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March 11, 1997: The run-up to Stuttering John’s Hotel Bill; Stuttering John and his entourage cause problems for Howard. As the conversation progresses more problems with John’s behaviour are revealed.
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