10 Things You Can Do To Help Spread the Word

The second full week of May is Stuttering Awareness Week. This is a great opportunity to focus public attention on a complex disorder that touches 70 million people around the world and more than three million in the U.S. alone.

“Actions speak so much louder than words,” said Jane Fraser, president of the Stuttering Foundation. “This year, the focus of our effort to celebrate Stuttering Awareness Week is to spotlight helpful activities everyone can do for the people who stutter in their lives. One in five children stutters for at least a short period of time, and one in 100 adults struggles with fluency on a regular basis. Most people know someone – a family member, a friend, a coworker or a classmate – who stutters.”

The Stuttering Foundation, the largest nonprofit charitable organization in the world working toward the prevention and improved treatment of stuttering, offers the following activities to celebrate Stuttering Awareness Week:

1. Watch a New Video: Know a person who stutters, a concerned mom or dad, or a school speech therapist? Ask them if they’ve seen our most recent video titled Kids Who Stutter: Parents Speak available online or in DVD format featuring proven tips from parents and hands-on speech-language pathologists.

2. Design a T-Shirt: At every convention we attend, and on our online store, we sell out of our T-Shirts regularly. Help us create a new design! Submit your ideas to info@stutteringhelp.org.

3. Sign Up for Social Media: Visit us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest. Engage with thousands of others on topics around stuttering and fluency. Please engage with us on our social media channels and share our content. We love when people “Share” our Facebook posts on their page because it helps us reach more of the stuttering community. We also love when you “Retweet” us on Twitter.

4. Find a Referral: Wonder where to turn for help? The Stuttering Foundation offers referrals to therapists in the U.S. and around the world.

5. Share Your Child’s Art: In our newsletters and on our website, we often feature the drawings, letters and poems created by children who stutter. Please help children who stutter to understand they are not alone! Any child wishing to share their artwork with us can do so by sending it to info@stutteringhelp.org. Please include name, age, city and a permission letter from a parent.

6. Learn about a Famous Person Who Stutters: Learning about famous people who stutter helps us to understand we are not alone in our struggles with fluency. It provides hope and inspires our community with the knowledge that great things can be achieved by people who stutter. Read our ever-growing list of famous people who stutter.

7. Get Information: Visit your local public library and ask if they have resource materials on stuttering from the Stuttering Foundation. If they don’t shelve them, tell them they can get a set very easily by contacting info@stutteringhelp.org.

8. Sign up for our Newsletter: The Stuttering Foundation creates three newsletters each year – Winter, Summer and Fall – and sends a paper copy to everyone on our mailing list. If you wish to receive a copy, please send your mailing address to info@stutteringhelp.org.

9. Read a Book: There are many excellent books on stuttering. The Foundation offers several for free in E-book format. Many have been translated into other languages.

10. Listen Patiently: When talking with a person who stutters, avoid finishing their sentences unless they invite you to do so. Keep eye contact and be patient – many people who stutter just need a little extra time to finish their sentences. For more tips, see our brochure.

CELEBRITY FOCUS

Bill Withers

While Bill Withers has long been on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter, many people probably didn’t realize he stuttered. He passed away on March 30, 2020.

Born in 1938 in Slab Fork, W.V., Withers was the youngest of six children. When his father died when Withers was small, he was raised by his mother and grandmother, both of whom worked as domestics.

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.

Bill Walton

From BillWalton.com

Thank you for your interest in my life long problem with my speech and communication skills. I was a very shy and reserved young man who could not speak at all without severely stuttering until I was 28 years old. Always a success in the classroom and on the basketball court, I took refuge in the things that I did well as a youngster. A straight A student, my athletic abilities covered the deficiencies that limited my overall growth and development. The game of basketball was my religion, the gym my church. It was a convenient way of avoiding my responsibilities of developing my human relation skills.

When I was 28, a chance encounter at a social event with Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Glickman completely changed my life in so many ways that things have never been the same since, nor have they ever been better. That day, in a very brief, private conversation (one way, mind you, since I literally could not speak at the time) Marty explained, patiently and concisely, that talking, communicating was a skill not a gift or a birthright and that like any skill, whether it be sports, music, business or whatever, needed to be developed over a lifetime of hard work, discipline, organization and practice. Marty gave me some simple tips that day and then encouraged me to take those keys and apply them to methods of learning that I had received from the special teachers that I had come across in my life, particularly the 6 Hall of Fame basketball coaches that I had played for throughout my career. The beginning of my whole new life was as simple as that. No gimmicks, tricks or shortcuts. Just the realization that with some help, guidance and a lot of hard work that I too could do what seemed so easy, simple and natural to everyone else, yet seemed impossibly out of my reach and comprehension.

Byron Pitts

Byron Pitts has brought much attention to stuttering with his memoir, Step Out on Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life’s Challenges, released in September, 2009. The book not only details his speech difficulties, but also his illiteracy until age 12 and his unstable family life. Pitts overcame the odds to become the chief national correspondent with ABC News.

Winston Churchill

Seeking to "remove Winston Churchill's stutter by second guessing the diagnosis" indicates neither a truthful retelling of history nor an informed opinion about a complex speech disorder, say experts in the field of speech-language pathology.

Recent news reports that quote Dr. John Mather, a Washington physician, as saying that Churchill's stutter "is a lie" brought adamant critical response from specialists in the field of stuttering and fluency disorders.