A chara, – Sylvia Thompson's article was positively refreshing and insightful ("Stammering: It's just a different way of talking", Health + Family, January 28th). It highlighted the good communication skills that someone with a stammer has – good vocabulary, good at listening, good at reading people. And that stammering has nothing to do with nervousness or intellect.
There is no need to blame a person; no need to feel pity, or embarrassment; no need to exclude a stammerer with qualifications from jobs that require good communication skills.
You can listen with respect and give a little extra time for the person to speak. This results in a healing effect that can reduce the struggle some have in speaking.
An eminent Irish scholar once referred me to an ancient Irish law that states, “Stammering is entitled to time”. How well our ancestors understood that time to speak is required to accommodate stammering! – Is mise,
MAIREAD LEAHY,
Monkstown,
Co Dublin.