Concealing Stuttering at School: “When You Can't Fix It…the Only Alternative Is to Hide It”

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore experiences with concealing stuttering in children and young people who stutter based on recollections from adults. In addition, we explored how school-based speech therapists can be helpful or unhelpful to children who are concealing stuttering from the perspective of adults who stutter. Method: Thirty adults who stutter, who previously or currently conceal stuttering, participated in semistructured interviews exploring their early experiences with hiding stuttering. Purposeful and random sampling was used to diversify experiences and opinions. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to develop themes and subthemes to describe participants' experiences. Results: All participants in the study reported beginning to conceal stuttering at 18 years of age or younger, with more than two thirds sharing that they began in elementary school. Participants reported that exposure to implicit and explicit ableist messaging about stuttering and traumatic social experiences at school contributed to their inclination to hide disfluencies. Many participants described concealment as a strategy for protecting themselves from stigma. Several participants condemned fluency shaping, calling it harmful and likening it to teaching concealment. Participants believed that speech therapists could be helpful by promoting safe and supportive school environments and by being responsive to the social and emotional challenges that can accompany speaking differently and navigating stigma at school. Conclusions: Some children who stutter may attempt to protect themselves from stigma by concealing their disfluencies, but doing so can feel isolating and confusing. Speech therapists can play an important role in making the school environment safer and more supportive for children who stutter.

Understanding Camouflaging, Stigma, and Mental Health for Autistic People in Japan

“…[5][6][7][8][9] Social camou aging refers to behaviors in which autistic people conceal their social differences to get by in a majorly neurotypical world, 8,10 but such behaviors are not restricted to autistic people only. 11,12 For autistic people, camou aging includes several types of behaviors, such as masking autistic behaviors like repetitive hand movements, learning social cues from TV programs, movies, and books, and assimilating with non-autistic people by forcing interaction. 13,14 On the surface, camou aging may help autistic people adapt to non-autistic society.…”

The Speaking Disfluencies in the University Students’ Classroom Conversation

“…It is also studied in the domain of the speech production (Jon et al, 2022). As a speech production, it can also be studied to analyze the process of their production to understand that it is also a speech phenomena which is practiced also by the native speakers of all languages in this world (Dewi, 2020;Gerlach-Houck et al, 2022).…”