• One of the hall-marks of affect is ‘In-between-ness’.

… the most fundamental insight of affect theory: that no embodied being is independent but rather is affected by and affects others bodies, profoundly and perpetually as a condition of being in the world.

— Ahern, A Feel for the Text. (2018)

<hr>

The challenge for researchers is that affect is not something, but rather is “in many ways synonymous with force or forces of encounter”; rather than housed in or controlled by the individual, it “arises in the midst of in-between-ness: in the capacities to act and be acted upon.

— Ahern, The Affect Reader. (2010)

<hr>

• ‘Affect’ as dynamic – emotions not static but in process – changing as they move between bodies.
• Robert Solomon recommended ‘thinking of emotions as acts’, as ‘something we do, not just have’.
• 'Affect’ captures maybe better than emotion that embodied aspect of experience (something felt before it’s understood).

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Sept. 17, 2012) — Jane Fraser, president of the Stuttering Foundation, made the following comments concerning the Sept. 15, 2012, Saturday Night Live skit ridiculing those who stutter:

We are deeply troubled by Saturday Night Live’s recent decision to make light of stuttering, a communication disorder faced by more than three million Americans and 68 million people worldwide. The release of The King’s Speech was a giant step forward for the stuttering community, bringing understanding and acceptance to those who stutter. SNL’s poor judgment was an equally huge step backwards.

The most troubling part was the obvious research conducted by producers, writers and cast into stuttering, evidenced by their use of the term ‘fluency.' They clearly did their homework but chose to overlook the pain felt by many who stutter and their families for just a cheap laugh.

The Stuttering Foundation supported SNL’s Seth Meyers when Donald Trump chose to call him out as a ‘stutterer’ after the White House Correspondents’ dinner. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Not funny, SNL. Not funny at all.

— Fraser (2012)

Hercule Poirot: I pity you, Norton… how very sad to find that this great and beautiful world is so foul and disappointing. And your mother, I pity even more.

‍Stephen Norton: M-my m-m-mother? You pity my mother?

Hercule Poirot: To endure the agony of bringing you forth only to discover that she had nurtured in her loins such wickedness – is that not worthy of pity?

Stephen Norton: It is you who is n-not worthy! She m-m-meant the world to m-me!

Hercule Poirot: And you to her?

Stephen Norton: She l-loved me… l-loved me m-m-more than… m-more than…

Hercule Poirot: Did she ever hold you, Norton, as mothers do? Stroke your hair… kiss your cheek?

Stephen Norton: She… she… she…

Hercule Poirot: Scared you, did she not? She pushed you away!

— Christie (1975) ITV adaption (2013)

Male gaze (Laura Mulvey)

Dr. Carol Marcus a Leading scientist, has doctorate in applied physics, specializing in advanced weaponry, who happens to take her clothes off halfway through a movie made in 2013 (Star Trek: Into Darkness).

<hr>

Medical/clinical gaze (Michel Foucault)

<hr>

White gaze (Toni Morrison)

The white gaze is the assumption that the default reader or observer is coming from a perspective of someone who identifies as white, or that people of color sometimes feel need to take into account the white reader or observer's reaction. Various authors of color describe it as a voice in their heads that reminds them that their writing, characters, and plot choices are going to be judged by white readers, and that the reader or viewer, by default, is white.

<hr>

Ideas of oppositional gazes have developed: the female gaze

Female gaze has been used to refer to the perspective a female filmmaker (screenwriter/director/producer) brings to a film that would be different from a male view of the subject. Having a female cinematographer allows women to be viewed as they really are and not the voyeuristic spectacle that the male gaze makes them out to be.

I would say in a few words that if either of these methods is able to be adopted with success on occasions in an easy and agreeable manner, a real step has been gained towards overcoming the affection; but if the sufferer is told to persist in uttering er, or to sing or roar out his words on all occasions, and trust to these as his infallible remedies, he will probably fail, for the remedies are so much worse than the disease that all sensitive minds would instinctively shun them with horror, and despond the more in consequence.

— Monro (1850)

<hr>

‍

<hr>

Other Examples of Stuttering Humour in Victorian Culture

• Humorous songs such as “The Stuttering Lass”.
• Minor characters in Victorian popular fiction.
• The celebrated theatrical character of Lord Dundreary performed by Edward Sothern. First appearance in the play Our American Cousin (1858). “Dundrearyism” in the periodical press.

<hr>

<hr>

• Anthologized throughout the nineteenth century in numerous anthologies of wit and humor, as well as  recitation manuals.
• In many of its incarnations, the “two stammerers” joke concludes with two people who stammer coming to blows because they each misperceive the other’s stammer as mockery.  

<hr>

<hr>

The speech-language pathologist is the professional who engages in clinical services, prevention, advocacy, education, administration, and research in the areas of communication and swallowing across the life span from infancy through geriatrics.

— The American Speech And Hearing Association (ASHA) (2007:1)

<hr>



Identity


• Etymological root refers to sameness but often seen as what makes me unique – who I am.
• Medical model/social model.
• Narrative Practice – viewed as “public and social achievement”.
• Co-constructed in “the trafficking of stories about our own and each other’s lives” White (2007, 182).

<hr>

The process of professional identity

• Individual process but co-constructed.
• Multiple identities.
• Fluid, dynamic.
• Therapeutic exchanges.
• Stories told and interpreted.
• Cultural Influences.

<hr>

How are identities constructed?

O’Dwyer and Leahy (2015)

• Postmodernist thinking – multiple identities are available to an individual at any given time.
• Narratives play a large role in how we construct and re-construct these identities for ourselves and for others.
• Narratives are how we make sense of our experiences and this meaning-making in turn leads to a sense of identity. Bruner (1986: 143) explained that ‘narrative structures organise and give meaning to experience’.  Riessman(2008: 8) states that ‘individuals and groups construct identities through storytelling’ and that these identities are fluid.

<hr>

SLTs – multiple identities*

• An individual speech and language therapist has multiple identities available to them at any time.
• More aware of some than others and how conscious/aware they are of any identity at a given time varies.
• Intrapersonal and interpersonal factors influence how these identities are negotiated and renegotiated.
• These identities are negotiated in their interaction with the people they see for therapy and their families/carers.
• “Through clinical interaction clients and clinicians negotiate who they are and the roles they play in the therapy story.” Simmons-Mackie and Damico (2011:44)
• If a particular identity gets validated through these interactions, it takes hold and is performed regularly, If not validated, gets renegotiated.

*O’Dwyer, M.  and Leahy, M.M. (2016). There is no cure for this:  An exploration of the professional identities of speech and language therapists’, Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders, 2, 149-167.

<hr>

Who are speech and language therapists working with children and adults who stutter and their families?
 Possible identities:

My contribution to The Stammering Collective was a talk reflecting on my work carried out over the last 10 years in relation to public understanding and awareness of stammering.  I questioned how stammering is perceived and defined by the public, spoke about how we might change wider understanding of stammering, and how we might be able to move beyond popular narratives of “overcoming” stammering.

Media engagement has been part of my professional roles with the Irish Stammering Association, the Irish Association of Speech and Language Therapists and the International Communication Project. A consistent theme I have promoted in print media, online publications, and in radio and television interviews is that, essentially, it is ok to stammer. Furthermore, it need not be seen as a negative quality needing to be fixed and it should certainly not limit the possibilities for an individual. These messages need to be repeated.

As the talk was intended as a conversation starter, it did not have a neat conclusion. Public engagement will continue over the coming years. I look forward to seeing where the conversation leads to in 2032 and again in 2042. I would hope that the “overcoming” narrative has changed and that I am able to listen to many more stammering voices on my hologram device. I also hope that these stammering voices are talking about lots of interesting things beyond the topic of stammering.  

Stuttering consists of involuntary disruptions to the rhythmic flow of speech, the speaker’s cognitive and emotional reactions to them, and the speaker’s perceptions of listener reactions.

In persistent stuttering, the speaker develops a sense of self-who-stutters resulting from attributing meaning to personal experiences through self-narrative. The construction of self-who-stutters is influenced by the speaker’s relationships with others. Current research indicates a neurodevelopmental basis for stuttering, with epigenetic influences. The narratives of people who stutter are key environmental factors contributing to the epigenetic process.

— O'Dwyer (2016)

• Disability viewed as a human rights issue.
• Direct challenge to the medical model & institutions within which most SLTs have been trained and work.

Calls into question:

• Principles upon which therapy is based.
• Roles of therapist/client.
• Language.
• Range of therapies offered.
• Types, forms and aims of research into stammering.

<hr>

If speech language pathology is the intervention that stuttering activists seek from the government, medicine and private sphere, there is at least a conversation to be had about its medical necessity […] The stutter itself is only a negative bodily development if making people occasionally wait an extra two to ten minutes is a pathological emergency. This is all just to say, the burden should be on speech pathologists to prove their legitimacy on something more than merely auditory aesthetics.

— Richter (2019, p.73-74)

<hr>

Call for action

• Ethical responsibility.
• Locating therapy discourse within wider disability/neurodiversity discourse.
• Call for broader focus of therapy to address roles that self-identity, society and social stigma play.
• Drive to enrich and enhance professional accounts.
• Co-authoring therapy knowledge.

Mind your Ps and Qs is an English language expression meaning "mind your manners", "mind your language", "be on your best behaviour", "watch what you're doing".

• To our self.
• To others.
• How we talk about children who stutter.
• How children who stutter hear us talk about stuttering generally.

Action: helpful self talk to counter stereotypes.

• Gather evidence in real-life situations will lead to generating more balanced thoughts on the basis of their findings.
• People can identify helpful self-talk that will positively influence their emotional reaction and behaviour in a situation.
• Helpful self-talk can also be generated by reflecting on previous experiences that have gone well and what the person was saying to himself or herself at the time.

<hr>

For the Speech and Language Therapist

• Be aware of own thoughts, feelings and expectations around stuttering and our role as an SLT.
• Communication trumps fluency.

Action: helpful self talk.

• Handouts for teachers.
• Powerpoint for school presentation.
• Advice leaflet for parents (Generate discussion about what works in therapy  and helpful versus unhelpful advice).

• ‍The blurt. Stutterers pepper their language with so-called “fillers” that ostensibly sit outside of, and even detract from, the message. We sometimes grimace and groan in the act of speech. In addition, we sometimes find ourselves in the midst of speaking sounds, words, or phrases we didn’t fully intend.‍
• The misfire. The phenomenon of stuttering includes both prolongation and repetition. Stuttering can extend the opening sounds of a message (e.g. ---aaaaaaaagree or bo-bo-bo-book), which an ableist grammar recodes as misfires that communicative parties can tacitly agree to ignore.‍
• The stall. A repetition can be a redundant redundancy (one that serves no discernable purpose), like repeating most of a sentence multiple times to get a “running start” on the difficult finish that was long ago anticipated by our impatient interlocutor. Or, in a hard block, the voice suddenly and unexpectedly runs dry. A word stops in your throat, and you must wait for infra-bodily traffic to clear while the absence of meaning gapes wide and dangerous in the social world.‍
• Crossed wires. A regular experience for stutterers, crossed wires describes the state of “talking past each other” that might begin when one party “mishears” the other and then feedbacks error into the conversation.‍
• The swerve. Clinicians prefer the term “avoidance” to describe the strategy stutterers employ when we sense an oncoming phoneme over which we expect to trip. I might, for example, begin to say “I agree” but change course, swerving around a potential misfire to substitute on the fly: “I don’t know.”‍
• The cut-off. This accident is one of attempted repair, caused when interlocutors or bystanders rush to the scene of an accident, interrupt, and reimpose order by attempting to predict and finish the stalled (or otherwise damaged) message according to a dominant grammar.‍
• The gridlock. Stuttering ferociously at the front of a queue, for example, halts the flow of information, people, and capital; it stalls a lane of traffic and tempts impatient honks in the form of tapped toes and glances, as everyone waits for an undetermined time until information and thus bodies will once again flow free.

We want to affirm, especially for the young people out there, that it is okay to stutter. We believe that not only is it okay to stutter, but people who stutter should be empowered to speak however is most comfortable for them – even if that speaking style contains pauses, repetitions, and blocks.

— NYC Stutters (2020)

<hr>

• Educators to integrate the diversity agenda into speech and language therapy training to enable future therapists to consider the philosophical underpinnings of their role and approach.
• Forums for therapists to examine their underlying values, role and scope of practice.
• Meaningful collaboration to rethink the scope, focus and role of future stammering therapy for CYP & adults.
• Open, public debate about social and ethical implications of research in the fields of neuroscience and genetics.
• Research into what matters for people who stammer.
• Balanced investment of funding.
• Accessible research findings & conferences.

<hr>

Still it appears to us that the answer will be forthcoming if we as a field are serious about engaging in a partnership between researchers and the population of people who stutter, for people who stutter can provide the most meaningful metric for determining whether a treatment is viable.

— Yaruss & Quesal (2004)

<hr>

It is critical for professionals to realise that people with lived experience are best situated to drive the effort for changing how our society thinks about stuttering. Professionals bring resources and credibility to the table which can be very important for public attitude change, and they can play a supportive role to improve social conditions. However, people who stammer themselves are best positioned to promote the agenda of their community in terms of actions and policies that effect their lives.

— Boyle (2019)