Source
Honest Speech
No items found.
Voice
Manifesto
Voice
A photograph of Erin Schick speaking in front of a microphone. They have light skin, short hair, and they are wearing a navy and white polka dot garment. The background is totally black.
Source
My Photo Project Shows That Stuttering Should Not Be Ashamed Of
No items found.
Voice
Manifesto
Voice
A black and white photograph of a woman ion mid-stutter. Her eyes are closed, her mouth is pursed and she is folding her arms. She has short dark hair, light skin and a light-coloured buttoned-shirt.
Source
Dysfluency in Three Modes of Belonging
Stuttering pride is starting to mature. No longer a hushed whisper that might evaporate if spoken aloud, the social movement of stuttering pride has turned to root and flower.
Joshua St Pierre
Voice
Manifesto
Stuttering pride is starting to mature. No longer a hushed whisper that might evaporate if spoken aloud, the social movement of stuttering pride has turned to root and flower.
Voice
Source
Straight Lines and Crooked Speech: Stuttering a Crip Politic
No items found.
Voice
Manifesto
Voice
A photo of a postcard on a wooden table. It reads: "Crip lips catch words flying straight and sit down for a chat; they create something new." The quote comes from Joshua St Pierre, whose name is featured on the bottom of the postcard. The font repeats and stretches some letters to reflect a sense of stammering. The text is blue, with blue and aqua waves of colouring the background.
Source
Alternative Voices
Alternative voices was a series of continuity announcements on Channel 4 by individuals with a variety of communication differences. They were released and used in December 2013. The announcements involve: Kate, who is an Augmentative and alternative communication device user; Matthew, a person who stammers; Jess Thom, who has Tourette’s; Alex, a deaf actor who uses both speech and British Sign Language (BSL); and Luke, who has Tourette’s.
No items found.
Voice
Patrick Campbell
Manifesto
Alternative voices was a series of continuity announcements on Channel 4 by individuals with a variety of communication differences. They were released and used in December 2013. The announcements involve: Kate, who is an Augmentative and alternative communication device user; Matthew, a person who stammers; Jess Thom, who has Tourette’s; Alex, a deaf actor who uses both speech and British Sign Language (BSL); and Luke, who has Tourette’s.
Voice
Patrick Campbell
A close-up photograph of a person speaking into a boom microphone. They have dark skin and are smiling, their face partly obscured in darkness. They are wearing a mustard-coloured top. The background is black.
Source
My Generation
My Generation by the WHO was released in October 1965. It was written by guitarist and song-writer Pete Townshend. The personnel involved in the recording were: Roger Daltrey, lead vocals; Pete Townshend, electric guitar and backing vocals; John Entwistle, bass guitar and backing vocals; and Keith Moon, drums. A range of stories exist as to the reason for Roger Daltrey’s distinctive staccato delivery. Producer Shel Talmy called it "one of those happy accidents". At first, the BBC banned the song, concerned it would be offensive to those who stutter. They reversed this decision after its initial success. The song is often included in lists of the greatest rock songs of all time.
No items found.
Voice
Patrick Campbell
Manifesto
My Generation by the WHO was released in October 1965. It was written by guitarist and song-writer Pete Townshend. The personnel involved in the recording were: Roger Daltrey, lead vocals; Pete Townshend, electric guitar and backing vocals; John Entwistle, bass guitar and backing vocals; and Keith Moon, drums. A range of stories exist as to the reason for Roger Daltrey’s distinctive staccato delivery. Producer Shel Talmy called it "one of those happy accidents". At first, the BBC banned the song, concerned it would be offensive to those who stutter. They reversed this decision after its initial success. The song is often included in lists of the greatest rock songs of all time.
Voice
Patrick Campbell
This image is the album cover of The Who’s single ‘My Generation’. It features a photograph of the four band members standing on a concrete surface looking upwards at the camera lens. Three of them have dark hair and one has light blonde hair. They are wearing a mix of denim and dark clothing. ‘The Who’ is in a red stencil font at the top left of the composition and ‘My Generation’ is in a smaller blue stencil font in the bottom right.
Source
Voice and Breath
No items found.
Voice
Manifesto
Voice
A photograph of JJJJJerome Ellis on stage performing, taken from someone in the crowd. He is singing into a microphone with a grand piano and various other instruments around him. In the backrgound is a massive gold-yellow sculpture constructed from glittering materials.
Source
Why Stutter More?
Stuttering may give us special insight into language by breaking it open and exposing its seams.
Emma Alpern
Voice
Manifesto
Stuttering may give us special insight into language by breaking it open and exposing its seams.
Voice
Source
Who We Are
Who We Are is an audio love letter to the diversity that exists within the stuttering community. It aims to represent as many different languages, accents and voices as possible.
Voices of the Stuttering Community
Voice
Manifesto
Who We Are is an audio love letter to the diversity that exists within the stuttering community. It aims to represent as many different languages, accents and voices as possible.
Voice
Source
Stammering Pride Against Prejudice
Sam Simpson
Voice
Manifesto
Voice
A photograph looking down at the stage at Stammering Pride Against Prejudice event taken by someone in the audience. The four speakers are sitting down, and the host is standing up holding a microphone. On the projector is a slide reading: "Dysfluent art: panel discussion chaired by Maria Stuart". Below it are the speakers' headshots and names: Paul Aston, Willemijn Bolks, JJJJJerome Ellis and Conor Foran. The image is in a blue monochrome colour.
Source
What does good speech therapy look like?
What does good speech therapy look like? Should you focus on spontaneity over fluency? "It's ok to stutter" can be a powerful message.
Stephen Greene
Voice
Manifesto
What does good speech therapy look like? Should you focus on spontaneity over fluency? "It's ok to stutter" can be a powerful message.
Voice
Source
Let's find new words
My goal is no longer to achieve fluency—because why should I have to?
Kaitlin Naughten
Voice
Manifesto
My goal is no longer to achieve fluency—because why should I have to?
Voice
Source
Stammering Pride and Prejudice: Difference not Defect
Whether people who stammer consider themselves disabled or not does not stop them from being disabled by society. As long as society views stammered speech as inferior, they will be disabled by societal norms.
Patrick Campbell
Christopher Constantino
Sam Simpson
Voice
Conor Foran
Manifesto
Whether people who stammer consider themselves disabled or not does not stop them from being disabled by society. As long as society views stammered speech as inferior, they will be disabled by societal norms.
Voice
Conor Foran
Source
Tories jeered and mocked as Ed Balls stammered
This is a video clip of the House of Commons during the 2012 Autumn Statement. It shows Ed Balls, a person who stammers and politician, speaking and being jeered and mocked for a moment of stammering. The Autumn Statement is an important part of a political calendar in the UK. The political party in power presents their monetary policy for the year. The opposition party then has a chance to ask questions and critique the policy. Ed Balls was in opposition government and the person, as shadow chancellor of the Ex-Chequer, in the role to give the main critique. He is a person who stammers and he stammered during his repost. The main party in governing power laughed and mocked him. Ed Balls has became an active advocate of people who stammer in the UK over the years after these experiences.
No items found.
Voice
Patrick Campbell
Manifesto
This is a video clip of the House of Commons during the 2012 Autumn Statement. It shows Ed Balls, a person who stammers and politician, speaking and being jeered and mocked for a moment of stammering. The Autumn Statement is an important part of a political calendar in the UK. The political party in power presents their monetary policy for the year. The opposition party then has a chance to ask questions and critique the policy. Ed Balls was in opposition government and the person, as shadow chancellor of the Ex-Chequer, in the role to give the main critique. He is a person who stammers and he stammered during his repost. The main party in governing power laughed and mocked him. Ed Balls has became an active advocate of people who stammer in the UK over the years after these experiences.
Voice
Patrick Campbell
A photograph of Ed Balls speaking in the UK House of Commons. He is a middle-aged man with light skin and greying hair. He is wearing a navy suit with a red tie. He is in the middle of speaking and is leaning against a podium. In the background are his political colleagues sitting on green-upholstered benches.
Source
Self portrait stammering
No items found.
Voice
Manifesto
Voice
An self-portrait oil painting of the artist stammering. His eyes and mouth are wide open, with his eyebrows raised. His hands are pointing towards his chest. He is a middle-aged man with light skin and short, balding hair. He is wearing a bright orange jumper an dthe background features a blue sky with white puffy clouds.
Source
Just Stutter
Willemijn Bolks is a stutterer and creative in the Netherlands. She has been making comics for the past few years to help herself and others understand the experience of stammering. She shares her comics on Instagram and has an online shop too. She shared this comic on International Stammering Awareness Day in October 2021. It shows Willemijn in a green top, in a variety of speaking poses saying “I st-st-st-st-stutter. I create long silences and I am allowed to take up that space.”
No items found.
Voice
Patrick Campbell
Manifesto
Willemijn Bolks is a stutterer and creative in the Netherlands. She has been making comics for the past few years to help herself and others understand the experience of stammering. She shares her comics on Instagram and has an online shop too. She shared this comic on International Stammering Awareness Day in October 2021. It shows Willemijn in a green top, in a variety of speaking poses saying “I st-st-st-st-stutter. I create long silences and I am allowed to take up that space.”
Voice
Patrick Campbell
A comic with black text featuring a character with greyish hair and a green jumper. The character appears three times throughout the frame. The text reads: "I st-st-st-st-stutter", "I create l…ong silences", "And I am allowed… to take up that space."
Source
Stammering Pride and Prejudice: Difference not Defect
The stammering aesthetic is an aspect of the person you may often witness when you meet them face to face, but one which is never shown on a still photograph. And yet, it is often an important aspect of their identity.
Patrick Campbell
Christopher Constantino
Sam Simpson
Voice
Patrick Campbell
Manifesto
The stammering aesthetic is an aspect of the person you may often witness when you meet them face to face, but one which is never shown on a still photograph. And yet, it is often an important aspect of their identity.
Voice
Patrick Campbell
Source
The Clearing
JJJJJerome Ellis’s The Clearing asks how stuttering, blackness, and music can be practices of refusal against hegemonic governance of time, speech, and encounter. Taking his glottal block stutter as a point of departure, Ellis figures the aporia and the block as clearing to consider how dysfluency, opacity, and refusal can open a new space for relation. This photo shows some of the typographic detailing in the publication.
No items found.
Voice
Conor Foran
Manifesto
JJJJJerome Ellis’s The Clearing asks how stuttering, blackness, and music can be practices of refusal against hegemonic governance of time, speech, and encounter. Taking his glottal block stutter as a point of departure, Ellis figures the aporia and the block as clearing to consider how dysfluency, opacity, and refusal can open a new space for relation. This photo shows some of the typographic detailing in the publication.
Voice
Conor Foran
A close-up photograph of a page of The Clearing publication. Black and blue typography are on a beige-coloured background. There are moments where the black typography repeats erraticly across the composition: the letter 'd' is scattered and overlaps multiple times. All the typography is the same size.
Source
The Stammering Collective
The Stammering Collective is an international group connecting clinical, cultural and creative practice in stammering, supported by Wellcome and University College Dublin. This event poster advertises the launch of their digital archive in October 2022.
The Stammering Collective
Voice
Maria Stuart
Manifesto
The Stammering Collective is an international group connecting clinical, cultural and creative practice in stammering, supported by Wellcome and University College Dublin. This event poster advertises the launch of their digital archive in October 2022.
Voice
Maria Stuart
A photograph of an event poster on a beige-stoned wall. The headline reads: 'The Stammering Collective: Connecting clinical, cultural and creative practice in stammering'. The words clinical, cultural and creative are coloured blue, cherry and emerald respectively. These colours feature throughout the main visual which is a stack of papers curving around the composition. Small text with time and date information sits in the bottom left. In the bottom right corner are the sponsors logos of the Wellcome Collection and University College Dublin. The background is black.
Source
Dysfluent Issue 2
Dysfluent is an independent magazine by Conor Foran and Bart Rzeznik that explores the lived experience of stammering through interviews and essays, facilitating contrasting and challenging views. Each interview is set in Dysfluent Mono, a font representing the person’s stammer. The second issue about stammering pride was published in October 2023 and is a compilation of interviews and visual artwork celebrating and challenging stammering pride.
No items found.
Voice
Conor Foran
Manifesto
Dysfluent is an independent magazine by Conor Foran and Bart Rzeznik that explores the lived experience of stammering through interviews and essays, facilitating contrasting and challenging views. Each interview is set in Dysfluent Mono, a font representing the person’s stammer. The second issue about stammering pride was published in October 2023 and is a compilation of interviews and visual artwork celebrating and challenging stammering pride.
Voice
Conor Foran
A photo of a person holding Dysfluent magazine issue 2. The front cover is folded outward, revealing a flurry of dark blue, repeated typography that visually represents stammering. The background of the front cover is a light teal. Stacks of the magazine are visible in the background of the phootgraph.
Source
I Talk Like A River
In 'I Talk Like A River', the author Jordan Scott relates stuttering to a bubbling, churning, whirling and crashing river. This is a watercolour illustration by Sydney Smith that features in the book.
No items found.
Voice
Conor Foran
Manifesto
In 'I Talk Like A River', the author Jordan Scott relates stuttering to a bubbling, churning, whirling and crashing river. This is a watercolour illustration by Sydney Smith that features in the book.
Voice
Conor Foran
A watercolour painting of a young boy swimming in water. He is swimming away, his back turned and face not visible. He has black hair and white skin. Around him are swirls of white, teal and green-painted water.
Source
Making Waves: A Stuttering Pride Flag
Making Waves: a stuttering pride flag was created by a group of seven people who stutter in October 2022. The flag expresses three values. First: community, represented by sea-green, symbolising the existing community that has used this colour for stuttering awareness since 2009. Second: nature, represented by the wave motif, symbolising stuttering as a natural, varied phenomenon. Third: liberation, represented by ultra-marine, symbolising the progress and passion of the stuttering pride movement. This photo was taken at the first stammering pride march in August 2023 in Victoria Park, London, and was attended by people who stutter and their allies.
No items found.
Voice
Conor Foran
Manifesto
Making Waves: a stuttering pride flag was created by a group of seven people who stutter in October 2022. The flag expresses three values. First: community, represented by sea-green, symbolising the existing community that has used this colour for stuttering awareness since 2009. Second: nature, represented by the wave motif, symbolising stuttering as a natural, varied phenomenon. Third: liberation, represented by ultra-marine, symbolising the progress and passion of the stuttering pride movement. This photo was taken at the first stammering pride march in August 2023 in Victoria Park, London, and was attended by people who stutter and their allies.
Voice
Conor Foran
A grainy, film photograph of a group of people standing in a wooded, grassy area. The group is diverse in age, skin colour, body size and clothing colour and texture. In the centre of the composition, two people are holding a large, hand-made flag. The flag is a stuttering pride flag, and features seagreen and ultramarine waves.
April 2024
Version 1

a dysfluency
manifesto

0 signatories

We welcome stuttering in all its forms, frequencies, and intersections, recognizing that we all stutter and stammer in different ways. Collectively, we desire a space (and time) for people with dysfluencies and their allies to explore, celebrate, study, and document vocal differences.

We are collaborators with interests in promoting dysfluent speech as an aesthetic and expressive value in a culture that demands speed, efficiency, and fluency in voice. Many of us are people who stutter or stammer in our speech. We view our speech (and your speech, too) as beautiful in all its voluntary and involuntary utterances. Some of us have gained from our collaborations with speech-language therapists; some of us have been traumatized by that same work. Some of us are working toward a radical revisioning of therapeutic approaches to stuttered speech through stutter-affirming conversations and dialogues. In our collaborations (past, present, and future), we challenge the primacy of biomedical expectations about fluent speech. We love and celebrate the diversity of speech patterns, the pauses in voice, communication, and thought, that dysfluencies introduce in conversation, and we sustain those conversations through ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue.

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We aim to produce accessible and sustainable resources that generate new understandings of speech dysfluencies and a transformative sense of belonging for those who speak dysfluently.

We fundamentally value those with dysfluent speech and disabled voices, inviting individuals, communities, academics, activists, artists, and therapists into a shared dialogue about how we experience, understand, and interpret dysfluencies. We challenge the medical models, social norms, and discriminatory practices that view dysfluency in terms of deficit, and we claim stuttering as a legitimate and valued form of speech variation within a soundscape of vocal difference and diversity. Our ongoing resources create vital connections between academic research, creative practice, and public accessibility and inclusion.

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We honour the rich and varied sounds of stuttered speech by ensuring they are heard and experienced within an emerging stuttering culture.

Stuttering Commons understands stuttering culture as the generative, creative potential of stuttering, seeing it as inherently valuable. A stuttering culture produces and amplifies more dysfluencies and creates an international community. We appreciate cacophony and ruptures in art, which contribute to how we understand and value dysfluent speech. We foster this sense of culture through international conversations in art, education, therapy, science, and lived experience. A stuttering culture values educational resources, publications, podcasts, conferences, events, exhibitions, and digital archives. We recognise stuttering’s cultural heritage and contemporary contributions, and we add to this soundscape of divergent voices. We delight in all the places that stuttering appears: the conversation, the discussion, the joke, the comic, the poem, the interview, the story, the dialogue, the monologue, the song, the stage, and the classroom.

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We invite individuals, academics, activists, artists, and therapists into progressive and emancipatory dialogue about how we experience, understand, represent, and document dysfluency in all its intersections to support collective action and social change.

We aim to deconstruct, unsettle, rupture, and bend fluency privilege through harnessing the generative potential of dysfluency across cultures to support shared world building and knowledge mobilization. We strive to build and sustain a dysfluent future through stammering pride and speech diversity. We invite those with dysfluent, disabled, neurodivergent, and minority voices into future collaborations advocating for transformative belonging.

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"A dysfluency manifesto" © 2024 by Stuttering Commons is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
CC BY-SA 4.0
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