ERIC Number: EJ1478091
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Jul
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1368-2822
EISSN: EISSN-1460-6984
Available Date: 2025-07-03
What's Love Got to Do with It? Reflections on the Role of Stuttering in Enabling and Enhancing Relationships
Amy Connery1; Christopher D. Constantino2
International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, v60 n4 e70082 2025
Background: Despite the literature highlighting the mostly negative impact of stuttering on an individual's life, there is emerging evidence alluding to an alternative and more advantageous experience for some adults who stutter. Features of this alternative experience include enhanced interpersonal relationships and increased sensitivity to others. Investigation of such favourable by-products of stuttering is lacking in the literature, and in order to comprehensively understand the lived experience of stuttering for all individuals, such exploration is required. Aims: This article aims to theoretically explore stuttering's capacity to enhance a person's cultivation of loving relationships, and relationships more generally, with others. Methods and Procedures: This aim is achieved through a broad discussion on the meaning of "love," and, more specifically, through the examination of the concept of "vulnerability" as a fundamental component that underpins a robust loving relationship. The role of stuttering as an act of vulnerability that has the capacity to enhance the relationships experienced by people who stutter is proposed. Main Contribution: This paper serves as a novel conversation on the potential for stuttering to enhance a person's cultivation of robust relationships. It continues the discourse that challenges traditional deficit-based perspectives of stuttering and presents an alternative narrative of stuttering that can shape our research and clinical practices. Conclusions and Implications: The advantageous by-products of stuttering, such as the role that stuttering plays in enabling and enhancing relationships, require further exploration. A range of clinical recommendations is outlined in order to support clients' enactment of vulnerability and enhancement of their relationship experiences.
Descriptors: Stuttering, Interpersonal Relationship, Role, Psychological Patterns, Barriers, Intimacy
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Clinical Speech & Language Studies, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; 2School of Communication Science & Disorders, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA