Jamie Rocchio: Frequent Overt Stuttering (Episode 67)
Download | Duration: 01:23:38
This is our first episode focusing specifically on people who stutter overtly, a lot. Jamie Rocchio and others have kindly mentioned to us StutterTalk folk that we have focused a lot on covert stuttering. So this will hopefully be the first of several episodes focusing on frequent, overt stuttering. Jamie is pictured below with a fatty catty.
Be sure and check out the 2008 International Stuttering Awareness Day (ISAD) Online conference. Check out the StutterTalk ISAD podcast and paper titled Stuttering is a Gift. The conference is live October 1 to October 22 (readers write in questions on the boards and the authors respond). Don't miss this amazing event!
Wondetful show. Kudos to you for branching out to do the more overt stuttering. I met Jamie at NSA in NJ, she is awesome. I don't have her email address. Please let her know I thought she did an awesome job, and to please give herself a great big hug. All of us who stutter, regardless of severity, share the same basic emotions, and sometimes it is so hard to express them. AWESOME JOB!!! --Pam
Interesting to hear what Jamie was saying about the use of claims in advertising for stuttering therapies or devices. My company is a marketing consultancy and we do a lot of work in healthcare, so I know how carefully the wording in ads is controlled in the UK and what kind of claims an advertiser is allowed to make. So my feeling was that any company claiming to cure or eliminate stuttering gives false hope to people who stutter and gives people who don’t stutter the false impression that stuttering can be dealt with quite easily. What's more, not only is the word ‘cure’ not used by speech therapists, but also it is not used in any other form of healthcare advertising, for any other condition, of which I am aware. No company, for example, is allowed to claim it can ‘cure’ even something as simple as a cold.
So, as I am also a Trustee of the British Stammering Association, I brought this issue up at a recent Trustees meeting and we were unanimous in our agreement that we should ask advertisers who are making doubtful claims to reconsider their position. This is working very well on an individual and voluntary basis and, if there is any uncertainty or disagreement, we ask our Advertising Standards Authority to look into the case. So far, a number of advertisers have understood our point of view and have kindly agreed to change their advertising. With the support of the ASA, we anticipate that all other UK advertisers who are currently claiming to cure or eliminate stuttering will change their ads.