Show:
Teasing
Suttering Facts
Why
More Facts!
100
No, that's not so. Teasing can make you feel really bad inside where it counts. You have to work hard to remember that you are a good person even when somebody says bad things to you. They just don't know what they are talking about.
Is it true that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me?"
100
What is stuttering?
Stuttering is when your words don't come out smoothly.Some kids say they get "stuck" on words and even call it "bumpy speech" because it sometimes shoulds this way
100
My question is can you ever stop stuttering?
it really depends. Some people apparently do stop stuttering, usually after a whole lot of speech therapy. Some stutter a lot all their lives, though. Most fall somewhere in between. That is, their stuttering diminishes, but it's still there. It just isn't very important any more. Most of the time people don't pay any attention to it.
100
How do you remember to use good speech in school, do you have any tips?
That's a hard one! If you haven't used good speech for very long, it will be really difficult to remember to do it when you have to ask or answer a question, read, or give a presentation. Instead of concentrating on the times you forget to use good speech, set yourself a goal of using good speech once a day for a week, then twice a day for a week, then three times, and so forth. Congratulate yourself for meeting your goal, don't be hard on yourself for not using good speech at the other times. By the end of the school year, you will be using good speech all day! Think about how you feel when you have to speak in class. Do you feel rushed? Do you feel like people are staring at you, or that the teacher wants you to hurry up and get on with it? If you do feel like this, you should talk to your parents, teacher or speech teacher, and together you can figure out ways to lighten up the pressure a little. Otherwise, just expect that sometimes you will forget to use good speech. That's really OK. As long as you don't get discouraged, you will eventually learn to use good speech without really thinking about it too much. But it can take a long time to learn to do that. Here's something else that you can do secretly for yourself. Next time you have question-and-answer time or oral reports in class, mark down on a piece of paper the number of times the other kids have to stop and start again, make a speech mistake, repeat a word or a syllable, or goof up some other way. I bet you'll be surprised! You might want to talk about that tally with your speech teacher. You see, everyone screws up speaking sometimes, so stuttering now and then really should not be that much of a problem.
200
Sometimes people tease because they are scared or puzzled by something. Most of the time people tease in a mean way because they're envious or they feel really rotten about themselves. They think they can feel better if they make someone else feel bad. Often the meanest teasers are people who aren't good in school, or who have bad problems at home.
True
200
How many people stutter?
3 million around the world. Both children and adults. If the amount of people that stutter stood in a line a held hands, they would stretch all the way across the US.
200
What makes you stutter?
We don't know the cause of stuttering but we do know that all people who stutter stutter more at certain times. Some people may stutter more if they are excited, tired, nervous, or upset. Some people stutter more when they first wake up in the morning. Some people stutter more when they try and talk really fast, when they're thinking of a word they want to say, or when they are feeling afraid about talking to a certain person. Even if you stutter, it probably doesn't happen all of the time. Most people don't stutter when they read in unison, sing, or talk to animals. Listen carefully to others around you. What you will notice is that everyone stutters sometimes.
200
The answer is really not very clear, but there are many possibilities. There is an old Norse word "stytta" which also means "to stop." There is also an old German word stutten that means to make a series of repeated sounds (like a machine gun) and another German word (stumm), which means to speak with involuntary pauses or blocks. In The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology, the word stutter was felt to orginate before the 1100's from another German word meaning to push or shove. Joseph T. Shipley traced the word "stutter" back to "stue" in his book The Origins of English Words. The word "stue" is from a Greek word that means to strike. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, apparently the word "stutter" doesn't appear in English until about the time Shakespeare was born. That was a period of great change in the English language. The word may be related to "totter." However, there is an obsolete word (a word that is no longer used) "stutte" that meant "stop" or "hesitate" so it could have come from that word as well. There is also an old reference from 1529 that says "Her felow did stammer and stut," which may have been an early example of the word "stutte."
What is the origin of the word stuttering
300
What should I do when people tease me?
The people who tease you are probably not your friends anyway, so the best thing to do is just walk away from them. If you want, you could also practice one or two things to say if someone teases you. For instance, you might look them in the eye and say, "So what?", or you might say, "Kids who stutter are just as smart as other kids" . It might help to think of lots of different things to do or say, practice them and choose the ones you like the best. Remember that stuttering is something you do with your mouth sometimes and does not make you any less smart, good looking, or friendly than anyone else. Sooner or later people who tease will probably get bored with teasing and leave you alone if you don't get all upset. If they won't leave you alone, you have a right to ask a grownup to help. That is not tattling. Nobody has to put up with being teased unless they want to be.
300
When do people start to stutter?
Most people start to stutter between the ages of two and about six or seven, during the time that they are learning how to make speech sounds and new words. Some people may start later than that.
300
What causes stuttering
Nobody really knows the cause of stuttering. Sometimes our speech machines (the parts of our bodies that make speech) don't work the way we want them to. There are many different ideas about why that happens. In fact, there may be different casues for different people. Scientists are working hard to try to figure out why people stutter. What is most important is that stuttering is nobody's fault. It's not your fault or your parents' fault.
400
What are some other things I can do that might help stop people from teasing:
The next time you have to give a report in health or social studies, ask if you may do it about stuttering. Most kids don't know anything about it, and believe it or not, some are kind of scared of it! Make a poster, bulletin board, or showcase about stuttering for Stuttering Awareness Week, or for a science project. Ask your teacher, or get a parent or your speech therapist to ask, if he or she can try a class experiment for twenty minutes or so and have everyone in the class "block." A good way to do that is to have everyone count silently and slowly to ten before they can say anything. That really gives kids an idea about what it is like to have a stuttering block!
400
What are some ways I can help others people learn more about stuttering?
Ask your speech teacher if it is a good idea for you to use Michelle and Judy's Therapy Picture Project - Helping Children Who Stutter Become Their Own Advocates. You can also use some ideas from John Ahlbach's Stuttering Presentation Guide
400
Why do I stutter sometimes and not at other times?
We really don't know why that happens, but it seems that everyone who stutters does this. There are some theories that make sense. One is that people get the idea very, very quickly that they will stutter in some situations. For instance, if you have a really bad stuttering block while you are in the lunch line, that might plant the idea deep down in your mind that you will stutter when you have to stand in line. So a couple days later you are standing in line to buy a movie ticket and --wham! -- you start stuttering! Another theory is that being "excited" can make you stutter because extra energy from other parts of your brain spills over into the part that controls speech. The excitement can be either good excitement such as going to a party or bad excitement such as being teased or scolded, but the effect is pretty much the same. You might talk to your speech teacher about doing a real scientific experiment. Keep a stuttering diary for a few weeks and see if you can figure out what kinds of things seem to make you stutter more and what kinds make you stutter less. Don't just look at the big, obvious things such as "being in school" or "going to the beach." Try to be very specific. Do you stutter more when you ask questions or when you answer them? Do you stutter more in math or in English class? In the post office or in the drug store? With men teachers or with women teachers? Figure out your own places and situations to compare. This kind of project can tell you a lot about your own stuttering. If you can figure out just what kinds of things tend to make you feel stuttery, you will have a useful tool for managing your speech.
500
What are some other things I can do that might help stop people from teasing:
Learn about famous people who stutter, or stuttered. Nobody makes fun of Bob Love! James Earl Jones, the person who is the voice for Darth Vader in Star Wars, stuttered a lot when he was young. He still calls himself a stutterer. Tell your friends about them. Word will get back to the teasers, too. They will be surprised. Try not to act shy when you are called on in class, even if someone laughs at you. It's hard, but try to pretend they aren't there. Your real friends won't laugh and you can act like you don't care about the others. When you meet new people, tell them right away that you stutter. Smile when you do it. Then they won't be surprised when you do, and they probably won't care, either.
500
When was the first incidence of stuttering reported?
Nobody knows that for sure. Stuttering is found in every language and every country in the world, and evidence of stuttering is found in several very old documents. There is even an example of a speech problem in Egyptian symbols called hieroglyphics.
500
Why do some people make me stutter?
First of all, get rid of the idea that "some people make you stutter." You might stutter more around some people than you do around other people, but usually they don't "make" you do anything. Your reactions are your own, and you can learn about them and eventually learn to manage them. The chances are that you stutter more around some people than you do around other people because they remind you of a time when you really stuttered badly. This reminder can be way deep down where you don't really even think about it. Of course, the more you stutter around those people, the more they make you think about stuttering. It is a vicious circle which is very difficult to break. Sometimes it makes sense that you might stutter more around particular people, for instance people who tease you and put you down, or people who are very bossy and impatient, or people who are always grouchy and who fuss at you a lot. If that happens, it would be a good idea to talk about it with your parents, your speech teacher, or a favorite teacher. People who are demanding, rude, or impatient