The Disabled Listener
Posted by: Pamela Mertz on: July 27, 2015
I’ve recently been thinking about disability, as I just finished writing a paper for the October ISAD conference. In my paper, I talk about the role other people play in defining a disability. Sometimes, society regards us as having a disability when we might not.
Interestingly, this coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA,) which was signed into law on July 26, 1990.
I also recently listened to an episode of the Stuttertalk podcast, where the social model of disability was discussed.
My mind wandered back several years ago to this amazing TED Talk by Sharon Emery, who talks about the person who listens as being disabled, as opposed to the person who stutters. I blogged about this a number of years ago, and included the link to Ms. Emery’s talk. It’s so worth watching again.
Also, I’m pretty excited to note that this is my 700th post on this blog. Pretty impressive, if I must say so myself.
Make Room For The Stuttering 
July 28, 2015 at 4:16 PM
That was incredibly powerful, I loved that woman. I’m not sure what I loved the most, I think it was when she said “my stutter is my accent, don’t take it away from me”. I want to meet her and thank her for saying that, that’s incredible. Thanks for posting that Pam!