The number of people who stutter in Bulgaria remains unknown, largely because these people avoid declaring their speech defect in public. It is believed that they are nearly 70 000, i.e. far from 1% of the entire population.
The Bulgarian Stuttering Association was founded in 1992 and ever since it has been the most active advocate of these people’s rights. Its mission is to provide a forum for mutual support and exchange of personal experiences. But also, to raise public awareness about the terror of communication felt by people with stutter every time they try to express themselves, and also to teach tolerance to their way of speaking. “Our vision is a society, where people who stutter are no longer ashamed, and feel guilty of their stammer. We wish to establish a society that accepts and treats us just the way we are, and gives us equal attention and respect,” reads the mission statement on the Association’s website.
But what do we know for fact about the right ways to communicate with people who stutter?
“The greatest shortcoming is that people tend to offer “help” by finishing the words or phrases for their stuttering interlocutors,” Mr. Ivelin Shapkarov, former president of the Bulgarian Stuttering Association, told Radio Bulgaria. “However, this is contraindicated because it embarrasses the people who stutter and their speech gets worse. On the contrary, we need to qualm their apprehension, and make them feel at ease, so that they can gradually overcome the speech difficulty. It is important to bear in mind that stammer occurs in front of strangers, and the people who stutter feel the greatest pressure when they speak on the phone, i.e. when they are unable to sense the reaction of the person at the other end of the line.”
For people who stutter childhood is particularly difficult, because they suffer the bullying of schoolmates, Ms. Tsvetana Dimitrova, another member of the Bulgarian Stuttering Association, argues. She is a linguist by education and points to the still pending problem of early diagnosis and speech therapeutic aid in school age. Speech therapists at school are able to offer help free of charge, but their number has greatly diminished in previous years, and that is why parents are forced to seek expert help, which is extremely expensive and therefore, less accessible.
“The most important issue is early diagnosis, because children can be taught how to breathe properly and utter their words,” Ivelin Shapkov explains. “But if there is no speech therapist at their school, the children are obliged to resort to the services of paid consultants. And with the normal course of treatment lasting for several weeks, and even months, the assistance becomes very expensive and few families can afford it.”
To help counter this hindrance the Bulgarian Stuttering Association has decided to legalize stutter as a disability that requires special attention, as is the case in many countries globally. In that case the National Health Insurance Fund will be entitled to assume a certain share of the expensive treatment.
“Because stuttering is not legally recognized as a disability, the people who suffer from it do not enjoy public support and are not in the focus of attention like the rest of the categories of disabled people,” Tsvetana Dimitrova argues, and points to the fact that the children are particularly vulnerable to this lack of support.
However, not all the people who stutter are happy to be legally recognized as ‘disabled’, Ivelin Shapkov explains. Last year the Bulgarian Stuttering Association adopted its “Communication Charter” which was addressed to the Bulgarian school and the state administration. The idea is to raise the awareness in these particular spheres to the good ways of communication and attitude to people who stutter. The hopes are that the Education Ministry will come home to the need of more free-of-charge consultations by speech therapists and psychologists in the schools, on the one hand, and that the civil servants will receive training in communication skills for approaching people with impeded oral communication, on the other.
Each year on October 22nd the Bulgarian Stuttering Association, which is part of the European League of Stuttering Associationsq marks International Stuttering Awareness Day. The facts show that people who stutter suffer discrimination, isolation, and a lack of respect and understanding of their problem. That is why the message of the Bulgarian Stuttering Association to all people who stutter is to uphold their right to speak, communicate and exercise qualified labour, Ivelin Shapkov says in conclusion.
English version by Radostin Zhelev
