Yesterday, on the 22nd of October, was this year’s International Stammering Awareness Day.
So what exactly is stammering? Defined as speaking with sudden involuntary pauses and a tendency to repeat the initial letters of words, stammering or stuttering is relatively common – it’s estimated that one in every 100 adults has a stammer.
The NHS defines two main types of stammering: ‘Developmental stammering’, that develops during childhood as a child is first learning to speak, and ‘Acquired or late-onset stammering’, that can occur in older children and adults as the results of injury, illness, or even trauma.
International Stammering Awareness Day, promoted by The British Stammering Association, aims to raise awareness of stammering and change perspectives towards it. Check out their article on the day here, which details information about stammering, shares some first-hand experiences of living with a stammer and gives information of all the events and actions from the day.
Want to know even more about stammers, how they can be caused and how they can affect a person’s day to day life? Check out the NHS page on stammers here, which gives you thorough information on the subject from a more medical perspective.
Perhaps one of the most well known sufferers of a stammer is King George VI, who was the subject of Oscar-winning film ‘The King’s Speech’. Read more here about the King’s struggle with his stammer and how speech therapist Lionel Logue helped him to overcome it. Give the King’s real speech a watch too, here.
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