I have hope this article will promote discussion and help to develop ways and means of educating people who provide frontline customer services.

'Wad some pow'r the giftie gie us to see oursel's as others see us...'
Rabbie Burns.

Discrimination is an ugly word about an ugly practice; when applied to any form of disability it is even more odious. The Disability Discrimination Act has made it unlawful to discriminate against anyone without justification because of a disability, but how does that affect us as stammerers - especially those whose stammer is not immediately obvious? That is a legal question. But also how do you regard your stammer? Is it a factor in your daily conduct? Does it prevent you from attaining the level of success in your work that your qualifications and intelligence would otherwise attract? I think that each of us needs to find our own answer to the question 'am I disabled because of my stammer?'

I am retired, but I have no doubt that the pattern of my working life could have been very different if I had been a fluent speaker.

'I do not think that malice is our enemy but ignorance certainly is'

The other question must be 'what do we mean by discrimination?' If one is not allowed to attain the position that one's qualifications and potential would otherwise indicate then it could be argued that discrimination has taken place. We will have to watch developments. I am sure that the BSA will be keeping an eye on events and will be reporting back to us through these pages.

Legislation and discrimination apart, we all have to deal with some level of humiliation and indignity on many occasions. However I do not think that I have met with malicious, intentional rudeness on more than a handful occasions since the day, long ago, when I left school.

I do not think that malice is our enemy, but ignorance certainly is. It is unfortunate in some ways that we bear no outward sign of a disability. Faced with a wheelchair or dark-glasses, a white stick and a guide dog, most employees can make an educated guess that the person in front of them is disabled and therefore entitled to a measure of patience, tolerance and assistance. However if they are confronted with someone ostensibly inarticulate, possibly displaying facial and body distortions, what are they to conclude? On the telephone it must be even more confusing. Given that they might never have had such an experience before and have had no training that would prepare them to deal with such a phenomenon, they are left to speculate as to the cause, leading to wild guesses as to what is happening. It is embarrassment and ignorance that prompts such inane remarks as 'can't you remember your name?' Or 'are you feeling all right?'

Putting ourselves in the other person's place can often help both to resist the temptation of resorting to physical violence or, futilely, trying to remonstrate with them.

We cannot blame others for ignorance of our situations. Surely the only redress against ignorance is education. As individuals we need to relieve the confused person trying to understand the situation by offering the explanation as soon as possible by declaring the name, if not the nature, of our disability. Once people know what the problem is, invariably their attitude changes immediately, bringing relief all round.

One of the tempting courses of action to reduce the number of words we will have to stammer over is to dispense with the common courtesies in order to get to the crux of the matter quickly. I have found this practice to be totally counter-productive as it makes our approach coarse and impolite which defeats the object because it is the important part of the message that we are most liable to stumble over, not the relatively meaningless polite formalities.

Apart from the personal approach I feel that we, as an association, have a part to play. The BSA already does a lot to inform and advise parents, teachers and employers but we need to widen the net and educate the people who front such institutions as banks, council offices and other public bodies on:
How to recognise the ways in which stammering presents itself;
The most helpful way to respond;
Any alternative media to enable the client to attain the objective without having to use the spoken word.
'I do not think that malice is our enemy but ignorance certainly is'

From the Winter 2007 edition of Speaking Out, page 12