Thanks to Google alerts, I received this update today, about the Kirkup Center for the Medical Treatment of Stuttering. The Kirkcup Center is associated with UC Irvine Health (in California.)

The center is (claims to be) the only program that treats stuttering as a medical condition, and combines medication and psychotherapy with speech therapy to reduce stuttering symptoms.

I find it interesting that this model uses the concept of symptoms to describe what we know as stuttering: frequent pauses, repetitions of words or phrases, prolongations and secondary behaviors. It’s of interest because symptoms are usually associated with a medical condition.

Most treatments for stuttering focus only on changing or modifying our speech, through traditional fluency shaping, stuttering modification, or avoidance reduction therapy.

This model suggests that stuttering can be treated as a medical condition, which for many people (in my opinion) might reduce the stigma of stuttering if it is seen as a medical problem.

A medical problem may seem more acceptable to many of us. It might not bring the same degrees of shame, guilt, fear and inadequacy that many of us now experience. With a medical model, self blame may be reduced, as we may think stuttering is not “our fault” much as cancer is not our fault.

What do you think? Is it more acceptable to you that stuttering be viewed and treated as a medical condition?