It is alright to stutter!

An excerpt from Sometimes I Just Stutter

It is not against the law to have big ears. Or red hair. Or blond hair. Or a fat nose. Or expensive clothes and a brand new bike. Or a small nose. Neither is it against the law to stutter. If YOU decide stuttering is wrong, you will put more pressure on yourself not to stutter; and we now know that this will make the stuttering worse. That doesn’t make anybody happy. So I always say, “IT’S OK TO STUTTER.”

If you decide stuttering is alright, you need not push yourself to talk better. And without that pushing, talking will start getting easier. Just the opposite of what you may have been thinking.

Lydia is ten years old. She was very upset about her stuttering, and she had decided she would not allow it to happen. She was so hard on herself that the stuttering got worse and worse. Her mom and dad agreed with me that stuttering is perfectly alright. We played all kinds of games with stuttering, and recently we made up this poem.

Just don’t splutter,

Go ahead and stutter;

Just be bright,

Stuttering is alright.

We had a good laugh making that up. Lydia is much happier. She does not hate the stuttering as much as she used to, and she speaks more easily already.

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CELEBRITY FOCUS

Emily Blunt

Actress Emily Blunt struggled with stuttering early in her life. A teacher encouraged her to act in a school play at age 12 despite her stuttering.

Blunt’s name is prominently featured on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter.

Lewis Carroll

The recent Disney version of Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice in Wonderland, garnered a great deal of media hype. Even though the mainstream media has not made mention that Carroll was a person who stuttered, his family history gives credence to the discovery of the genetic link to stuttering. Carroll was born to parents who were first cousins; almost all of their eleven children, three girls and seven boys, struggled with stuttering past childhood.

Alan Rabinowitz

Alan Rabinowitz, Ph.D., who passed away in 2018, was an explorer, wildlife conservationist, and author. He established the Hukawng Valley Tiger Reserve in northern Myanmar, which is about the size of the state of Vermont.

His love for animals began when he was very young.

Kenyon Martin

Kenyon Martin, the basketball sensation who was named to the NBA’s All Star Team in 2004, joins other famous people who stutter in a new brochure. The brochure - which unfolds into a small poster - is available free of charge from The Stuttering Foundation.

The poster is intended to give children and adults who stutter inspiration as they grapple with their speech disorder.

Frank Wolf

This Virginian congressman has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1981. The longtime supporter of the Stuttering Foundation drew national attention to childhood stuttering in 2006 when he submitted an article about Tiger Woods from the SFA newsletter to the Congressional Record. The congressman is featured in the Stuttering Foundation's Famous People Who Stutter brochure.