“A highway patrol police officer stops a car that was speeding. The officer asks the driver questions about the speeding offense. The driver hesitates, grimaces, and blinks, before responding with halting speech. The officer may interpret this pattern of responding as a sign that the driver is under the influence of a substance, has a psychological impairment, is resistant to cooperate with authorities, is attempting to hide something, or any combination of the above (McCullough, 2013). However, the officer may not realize that this behavior is the result of stuttering. Although there is preliminary evidence that people who work in protective services such as law enforcement exhibit less helpful behavioral and more negative affective intended reactions toward people who stutter (PWS) than average (Beste-Guldborg, St. Louis, & Campanale, 2015),1 this question has received little scholarly attention. Considering the crucial role that protective services workers have in ensuring the safety of the public, and the impact that negative encounters with protective services workers may have on safety and quality of life for PWS, intended reactions of protective services workers toward PWS warrant further empirical study. “
This above is an excerpt from an article titled Reactions of Protective Service Workers Towards People Who Stutter, found in the Journal of Fluency Disorders.
Study results reveal that protective services workers have more negative reactions towards people who stutter, as oppose to non-protective service workers? Do you see a problem with this?!!
This scenario and many other like it that occur everyday around the globe means that there is ignorance when it comes to speech impediments like stuttering and an overall lack of education. What does this mean for people who stutter? This means that an innocent person can get pulled over for something as simple as a broken taillight > they will most likely stutter if they’re a person who stutters > the police officer is likely to be suspicious as mainstream knowledge has suggested that stuttering can be a sign of lying > and the person who stutters is left holding the bag.
Society needs to be educated that people who stutter are normal people too! What can we do to change this image that history and media has created regarding people that stutter?! The difference starts with you.
"YOU MUST BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD”
-GHANDI
Don’t believe me about mainstream media’s interpretation of what stuttering means? Check out my next posts and you’ll see what I’m talking about :)
**This article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094730X16300328
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfludis.2016.08.001
