Most people who stammer are put, all too frequently, into situations where they feel unable to stammer openly due to the risk of being stereotyped, stigmatised, or discriminated against. This can place a considerable burden in terms of feeling the need to conceal or mask their dysfluency to pass as fluent. Discussing ableism (i.e. social prejudice in favour of people who are able-bodied) is complex and is an emerging and evolving cultural notion.
To give people who do not stammer an insight into how it feels to experience the ableist expectations and norms that are pervasive in today’s society, the following satirical questionnaire was devised. Inspired by The Heterosexual Questionnaire attributed to Martin Rochlin (1972), it is based on fluency-phobic premises, rather than the fluency-philic premises which currently dominate. The Fluency Questionnaire aims to upend the typical dynamics between stammering and fluency and parody the formal assessment measures that people who stammer are frequently asked to complete.