I recently came across an article written in the NY Times about a student, Philip Garber Jr., and his experience with a particular college professor at the County College of Morris.  The article, Professor's Response to a Stutterer-Dont Speak, highlights how Garber was asked to hold questions for the beginning and end of class so he "does not infringe on other students' time."   He was also asked to respond to questions on paper, rather than raise his hand like the rest of the students.  He advocated for himself to the dean and was transferred to another class, where he is now able to speak freely. 

Although this is quite an extreme situation and there are many wonderful teachers that are very sensitive to the needs of students who stutter, this article still brings up the importance of educating teachers on stuttering.  Like parents, teachers are often trying their very best, but quite simply may not be aware that some things they are saying or doing are, in fact, not helping at all. 

Here are some tips for teachers: 

A few months back one of my fabulous students, Spencer, wrote a letter to Vice President Joe Biden and shared with him his experiences with stuttering.  As many of you may know, VP Biden, whose very job it is to speak publicly, identifies as a person who stutters (PWS).  He is a spokesperson for the American Institute of Stuttering and has spoken publicly about stuttering on such talk shows as The View (posted above).  Because I am so very proud of Spencer and all of my students for their willingness to advertise and educate others on stuttering, I have attached the letter Spencer received from Biden (upon Spencer's permission of course!)   

In the 1930's, Dr. Wendell Johnson decided to create an experiment to test out his theory that stuttering is a learned behavior and occurs as a result of a child being told that they stutter.
Johnson was quoted to have said that stuttering ''begins not in the child's mouth but in the parent's ear.''  His research assistant, Mary Tudor, went on to take a group of children who stutter and a group of children that were fluent and separate them into groups to determine if children who were fluent would begin stuttering if they were told they stuttered and if children who stuttered would stop stuttering if they were treated as a fluent child.  Some of the children (both fluent and disfluent children) received praise in regards to their speech and some were provided harsh criticism to include statements such as "Don't ever speak unless you can do it right."  The results of the study indicated that the children (both fluent and nonfluent) receiving harsh criticism demonstrated reduced speech, shorter utterances and negative feelings about speaking.  However, in my opinion, this did nothing to prove that stuttering is caused by telling a child that they stutter, rather demonstrated how verbal abuse can result in social anxiety! The study was never published and later dubbed "The Monster Study" due to how unethical it was. (Reynolds, 2003)  Unfortunately, remnants of Johnson's theory still remain and many parents worry about the possible negative effects of drawing attention to their child's stuttering.  

Not only do I disagree with Johnson's premise that labeling a child's speech as disfluent could induce stuttering, I venture to say that NOT labeling it and ignoring a child's disfluencies can potentially be harmful.