Author Tove Selvag Drott was kind enough to snail-mail me a copy of her book Hello? Still there? for review and it was indeed a pleasure to read. Tove is a teacher who stutters and this book not only presents her experiences but brings in multiple perspectives including from family members, Speech Language Therapists, and athletes.
One of the big questions in the book is why do so few people in the “outside world” know about stuttering and what to (and not to) do when speaking with a person who stutters? She mentions the all-too-familiar frustrations of having words put into our mouths, and visible signs of boredom and inattentiveness from our listeners (looking anywhere else but at the person speaking) that in turn just makes us angry and often our speech worse. She also recounts some very pleasant encounters of people asking about stuttering: not to be mean but just genuinely curious. I, for one, would not willingly talk about my speech for many years even though I wear it on my sleeve every day (I am on the very severe end of the stuttering spectrum) and now find myself overjoyed to have a respectful conversation about it when I sense that the intention of the listener is good.
Tove recognizes that she is fortunate to have pursued her chosen career as a teacher despite a noticeable stutter and knows that many people are, unfortunately, unable to do the same.
Every person’s reaction to their stutter is different. Some just talk away regardless of how long it takes and others stay silent: either by fear or just not wanting to run the “mental marathon” of a particularly bad speech day.
Her ultimate take is that she doesn’t accept that her stutter should prevent her from fully participating in life however she wishes to and that is applicable to all of us. One of my own quotes on the subject is “It is not a choice to have a disability, but it is a choice to be disabled by it”.
Tove: thank you for the book! I was delighted to see it in my mailbox and even more so to finally read it.
Catherine has stuttered all of her life and fully expects to continue to do so. She’s been active in the stuttering community (both in Canada and the US) for over 20 years and loves going to conferences to stay up and drink and talk all night long where there’s no worry about when that next block is going to strike and spoil the punchline. In her professional life, she’s a physicist and software engineer and has worked for NASA on analyzing satellite data. She grew up and went to school in Montreal and Toronto and despite living in the US for many years, considers Canada to be home although she refuses to be dragged into a Montreal vs. Toronto flame-war!