We parents can help them
By Herb Drill
There’s no ancient scroll recording if his playmates and school chums teased Demosthenes, who overcame stuttering to become the greatest orator of ancient Greece. Reportedly, he spoke with pebbles in his mouth to improve articulation, shouted above the ocean waves to improve his volume, and worked with an actor in reciting Sophocles and Euripides to coordinate his voice and gestures.
In our time, that mellifluous voice of “Darth Vader - the superb actor - James Earl Jones (yes, the Verizon commercial spokesman) – surmounted stuttering and ridicule, too. Now, a new book from a Purdue University speech and language pathologist argues that more must be done to address the bullying that often results in more anxiety for children who stutter than the speech disorder itself.
Stuttering is thought to be a complex combination of biology and faulty speech learning, Murphy said. It is diagnosed when a child has been stuttering consistently for six months to a year. Family history is a factor, and boys tend to stutter more than girls. Approximately 70%of preschool children outgrow stuttering, and with early therapy the recovery rate is even higher. School-age children and adults are rarely cured. However, speech pathologists can help these people to dramatically reduce the severity of their stuttering and help them to make talking more enjoyable.
"Working on techniques to cope with stuttering aren’t enough because children's hurt feelings are getting in the way," said William Murphy, with more than two decades experience developing speech therapy at Purdue's Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts in West Lafayette, IN. "Even the children who receive therapy to help them live with stuttering continue to have negative feelings as they grow older. Their ability to communicate is still hindered by the shame and embarrassment they feel about stuttering, which is often brought on from bullying and teasing."
Murphy (765-494-3810, or wpmurphy@purdue.edu), whose publications and presentations focus on the role of shame and guilt in stuttering, teamed with two other speech and language pathologists - J. Scott Yaruss, of the University of Pittsburgh, and Robert W. Quesal, of Western Illinois University - to co-author "Bullying and Teasing: Helping Children who Stutter." Nina A. Reardon, a specialist in fluency disorders in private practice in Illinois, also contributed.
The public school system is usually responsible for providing the majority of speech therapy services for children who stutter, Murphy said. "However, most public schools' resources are stretched, and children may not receive the kind of individual services that would be best," he noted. "In addition, the anxiety children have about stuttering may be overlooked, especially in large group therapy settings."
Parents can help: talk to your children about bullying behavior. The "Dos" for parents, outlined in the book, include working with the child to develop a plan for handling a bully. Then, parents can practice with the child on how to talk to a bully or help children remember to leave to find a group of friends or stay close to a teacher or other adult. Murphy claims parents often make the mistake of telling children to ignore bullies or fight back.
"Children really can't ignore a bully because what they say bothers them too much," Murphy said. "Fighting back really doesn't address the problem and is more likely to result in more problems with the bully."
Teachers can learn how to make stuttering a topic of discussion in classrooms. Murphy visits classrooms to talk with students about what stuttering is and about some famous people, such as James Earl Jones and Winston Churchill, who stuttered as children.
The 110-page book ($8) was funded and published by the National Stuttering Association. There are sections in the book for parents, teachers, speech and language pathologists, and children who stutter. The book can be purchased from the National Stuttering Association - call 800 937-8888, or visit www.nsastutter.org/catalog/detail.php?id=46.
Help children who stutter avoid “the dark side” of being bullied.
William Murphy, of Purdue University's Dept. of Speech, Language, and
Hearing Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts, worked with the National
Stuttering Foundation to publish a book that helps parents and teachers deal
with bullying and other self-esteem issues that children who stutter face.