How do you react to a person that stutters? Do you laugh if you' not sure?

Just wondering because I stutter and have gotten many different reactions over my 49 years. Last night I was picking up a take-out order and had a little block while talking to the teen aged cashier. I'm sure she didn't know that I was stuttering and she giggled a bit. I let that slide and moved on.

Other times I encounter those who just think that its really fucking funny and laugh or try not to when I'm trying to express myself, but they never actually come out and say anything about it.

Then I get the "Just spit it out" people who laugh and call there buddies/co-workers over for the show. This type usually has a remedy for what has been ailing me my whole life. "Just slow down and think about what you have to say", with a shit-eating grin on their face all along.Oh yeah? Thats all I need to do? Shit, what have I been thinking all these years. This type I now tell to "Fuck Off!"

Sometimes I get the ones that think that I'm drunk, drugged or retarded. Telling me to sober up and not talk to them in that condition, or "Does your mother know your here", spoken to me loudly and slowly like I'm a 3 year old. This is a real ass-kicker for me, and I tell this type to read up on stuttering.

Then last but not least, I get the arrogant fucks that laugh, and when I confront them and tell them that I do have a dysfluency they get all defensive and say things like "Dont lay that guilt trip on me because you have the problem! Hey its funny and I laughed. Big Deal!".

Have you ever encountered a stutterer or do you stutter?

How do you respond to that? I'm just curious because I've put up with a lot of shit over the years and I now tend to go anabolic on most that dint respond like I would like them to.

Am I getting too sensitive or should I be sensitive to the feelings of those who are ignorant of what stuttering is and how it works?

ANd if they get on a stutter once I got the point, I let them know I got the communication. I don't mean to finish their sentence for them but if they are completing a sentence and get stuck in a stutter, I do..usually people who do stutter will respond in the affirmative..so I assume it's not an issue for them if I do that.

And yes..I know someone who stutters.

Its like I dont know what I'm supposed to say next.

...I usually ignore it and talk to him like I would with any other human being.

I just wait patiently until he says what he has to say.
I think laughing or giggling would be inappropriate.

...when I worked at a bookstore a few years ago. He would come in now and then to asked about a book and it took him a while to get it out. It never occured to me to laugh. Until I read your post I had no idea that people still laughed at people who stutter. I'm actually kind of surprised.

and he was making me stutter and that I should join her church to find Jesus and rid my soil of what Satan planted in me.
Yeah, OK!

cuz, ya know, anything that makes you not perfection is the work of satan. i'm heavy? must be the work of satan. being lazy and eating too much doesn't have ANYTHING to do with it!

"you stutter? must be the work of satan. give your mind--i mean heart to jesus!"

I stutter in my native language, Spanish, but only very rarely in English ot French. Weird, eh?

Maybe I'll try that.

It's an easy language too!

You bet. I always knew there was something not quite right with you.}(

I'm more like this: :crazy: :silly:

general.

You have to focus more when you are speaking a foreign language, so you are more likely to concentrate as you speak and less likely to fall into the habits that cause you to lapse into stuttering.

Or so I've been told.

your native language is the one you learn with all the idiosyncracies and slang and don't really study the language thoroughly. your other languages are thought out and you're probably paying more attention to the words.

the other day I was explaining something to a co-worker and I happened to really stutter through the last bit of what i was saying, the woman i was talking to kind of giggled at it, like i meant to do it on purpose. i really had no intention of stuttering, just sometimes things don't come out quite right.

so yeah, she laughed at me thinking i was joking, when i really wasn't, i just left it at that, but i guess what i am trying to get across is maybe some people you may stutter to breifly/in passing actually think you are joking around, thus the giggle.

to clarify, i am not a stutterer, although i am not the best at vocalising my thoughts either.

Maybe I'm just too sensitive?

i am sorry if i have offended you, that was not at all my intention.

my point is that in a situation where you have brief conversation, someone may not know that there is a legitimate problem.

you asked for people's experiences with stuttering, i was relating what i had experienced when i stuttered. i found it to be quite strange that i was laughed at because it was not at all intentional on my part.

once again, i did not mean to offend or to belittle you or your situation.

sorry.

I just found that funny because most stutterers would never think of doing that.

Its all good my friend!

:hi:

another miscommunication chalked up to quickly written text posted on the internet.

long live message boards!

:silly:

I was amazed and disgusted by how many people would mimic her to her face when meeting her for the first time. She's had a hard time with job interviews, sometimes potential employers have been really unprofessional and rude about it. It isn't very pronounced either... or maybe I just don't notice anymore since I've know her since I was little. :shrug:

As are on the job promotions. I was passed up for a supervisors posituion at this shipyard I worked at. The guy that got the job over me was a drunken moron that couldnt read blueprints. My boss told me that having me at supervisor "would be an embarrassment to our dept havivg someone that talks like you in that position."
I probably could have sued but I had a family and a mortgage and needed the job.

BTW, I dont stutter all the time but at times it can be intense.

I just act as if nothing's wrong and wait for them to finish saying what it is they're trying to say. I'm sorry some people are insensitive clods about it, maveric.

:hug:

patiently, and if I knew exactly what he was going to say, I'd say it to him as a question,this normally resulted in him knodding his agreement and saying "yeah." After that, we'd just continue on with our discussion.

but as a New Yorker, I will sometimes finish a sentence. I know that's not polite, but I'm a New Yorker!

..and I laughed my ass off at him.
No I didn't..I'm kidding. Sadly he died last year, but I just talked to him like normal. There was always a desire to finish his sentence for him, but I hardly did. He was a great singer too.
When I was young I couldn't say my r's. That lasted until I was in the 5th grade and I had a lot of people who made fun of me. Luckily I could say my F's and Y's.

:evilgrin: :D

sorry, but i had to. try maybe studying english more carefully, learn to enunciate and pronounce things correctly? that might aid the stuttering too.

and it has never occured to me to laugh at him. I just wait until he finishes. Since I like to finish people's sentences anyway, I REALLY have to bite my tongue. People like me are irritating, we sentence-finishers.

I occasionally sputter, which I call it because its like mini-stuttering. I do it a couple of times a day, somedays not at all. Is that just a form of stuttering? I've gotten laughed at at that before. The "duh-duh-duh yuck yuck yuck" jackasses.

I think your reaction has to be relative to their reaction.

I am a fluent public speaker but one to one I sometimes have serious problems communicating. I'm left-handed and the teachers tried to make me write with my right hand. That precipitated years of serious stuttering...really serious.

My job involves a substantial amount of public speaking and I am 99% fluent in that mode. It's the bane of my fucking life otherwise and has often driven me to despair. I bet that chimes.

People don't laugh at me though because I look like a nightclub bouncer...seriously!

edit - worser grammar than usual

I might be so damn scared that I dont think about stuttering.

and I used to get upset at his brothers and sisters (well, cousins actually, as he was abandoned as a child and raised by his uncle - my grandfather) making fun of him.

I just let the person who stutters finish. I wouldn't want anyone finishing my sentence, why would someone who stutters find it acceptable? I'd also hate for someone to feel even more self conscious. We all have a right to speak...in our own way. :-)

I can't imagine laughing at someone who stutters. It seems like you've encountered too many jerks. :hug:

i wouldn't like to be laughed at for having trouble communicating, i know that for sure. i have enough trouble anyways, i don't need to stutter...:/...(just a self-confidence issue for me, i think)


if someone isn't making a big show of it and just giggles, i think ignore it. they're not being malicious about it, it's just a reaction, they're just ignorant of the causes, i'd say. the people who call over their friends, feel free to punch them in the face. it's malicious then. if someone did that to me, i would probably lose my normally-controlled temper and do something i (and they'd) regret.

the third kind...i'd either ignore it or continue as you are doing. i don't see much else to do in such a situation. (well, except knee them. but that's not polite...:evilgrin:)

I listen. Sometimes I do try to finish the sentence because I want to relieve the stutterer of their difficulty and be helpful to them, but I understand now that this isn't a good idea.

I would never mention it either unless it was clearly called for, for example which one of us should make the announcement over the loudspeaker.

I'm still amazed and horrified that anyone would laugh. It's a hard world, isn't it? People can't cut each other even the tiniest break ...

if they have to go to all the trouble of saying it.

in the 80s, I had a regular contact which stuttered extremely.

After the first or second call, I realized that I just had to be patient with him and not try to finish his sentences for him.

I'm talking major stutter. Especially on the Ds. There would be 1 to 3 or so seconds between syllables.

The conversations took a long while, but I like to think that I left a good impression on him.

Good luck. I hope that people are patient when working with you. It's not you who has a problem (well, you do, but the other people have to learn that not everybody is as angel-like as they are).

Oh so much adventure!

Seriously - what is the appropriate response? I assume just waiting patiently but just wanted to be sure.