When I was 11 years old, my speech-language pathologist told me: “Look, John Stossel (the television personality) stutters, and he speaks beautifully. You will be able to do that, too.”
My therapist was trying to motivate me, but the message was that my goal should be to speak perfectly.
For me, that was not the case. By age 14, I already knew my stuttering was not going anywhere. Although I’m a fairly strong communicator, I continue to experience stuttering – a neurological condition that impacts the fluent, forward flowing production of speech.
Like me, roughly 1% of the world’s population stutters. That translates to more than 70 million people worldwide and over 3 million people in the United States, including Biden.
Biden’s experience with stuttering is a compelling one. What inspires me is the way he talks about his experience as a person who stutters. For people who stutter, the presidential campaign, Biden’s election and his inauguration mark an important change…