Stuttering & How Communication Skills Are Perceived At Work

Transcript

[00:00:00] Proud Stutter has its biggest event ever tomorrow on Saturday, January 25th. We are going to be putting on a panel at the Sundance Film Festival with award winning filmmaker Reid Davenport, who did the film I Didn't See You There and has An upcoming film premiering at Sundance called life after so if you're in the area, please come by, um, or even if you want to do a last minute trip.

Um, so our event is going to be at the National Ability Center on Saturday, January 25th at 5 p. m. We're going to be joined by a bunch of people in the independent film industry And yeah, we can't wait to tell you all about it. And if you plan on attending, can't wait to see you there. Um, if you go to proudstutter.

org, you can find out more [00:01:00] about the event on that. So without further ado, here is my interview with Cody Du. I'm Maya

Chupkov, and I'm a woman who stutters. Welcome to Proud Stutter, a show about stuttering and embracing verbal diversity in an effort to change how we talk about it. One conversation at a time.

Welcome back to Proud Stutter. I'm your host, Maya Chupkov. And with us today, we have Cody Du. Cody is a person who stutters, a husband and father, a professor, and he's also an avid runner who strives to face life's challenges. [00:02:00] With patience and humor, Cody is based in Binghampton, New York, and he has a study that was published called how perceived communication skills needed for careers influences vocational stereotyping of people who stutter.

So we're going to get into Cody's stuttering story, how we got into this research, and we're so excited to get that started. Cody, welcome to Proud Stutter. Thank you, Maya. Yeah, I'm, I'm very excited to be here as well and get the chance to, um, talk with you and be on the podcast. Yes, I, when I had Um, read through your, the article that was on your, um, university's website.

I was like, this is such needed research. I. Felt very much seen in the research [00:03:00] because I myself have been discriminated against in the workplace. Um, and I think a lot of it has to do with just like the lack of understanding of what stuttering is and just the myths and like assumptions and.

interpretations of like speech. And so I'm just really excited to dig in. But before we get into the research, I wanted to kind of take a step back and talk to you about your stutter, your experience with a stutter and what led you to want to study this aspect of stuttering in particular. I've stuttered for, for as long as I can remember.

Um, Growing up, you know, in, in grade school, even in through high school, I was always told that I stuttered because I had anxiety. Um, and so I never knew that stuttering [00:04:00] was a thing, right? I never knew it was a communication difference, um, a communication disorder. Until I was a freshman in college. Um, and so, you know, once you get to college, your social relationships are different.

You know, you have to talk about very specific things when you get presentations when you're talking to your professors. And so that kind of led me to do some research on my own, like, what is this thing that happens? Like, why do I get tripped up sometimes when I'm talking? And that's how I learned about stuttering.

You know, I think the first page I landed on was The, um, Stuttering Foundation and read through some of their free resources and just learned about this thing called stuttering. And so my first therapy experience [00:05:00] was the summer after my freshman year of college. Um, I went to an intensive program. It was two weeks long, like seven hours a day.

Um, And that was at the University of Toledo, where I was attending college, um, led by, uh, Rodney Gobble, who's a pretty well known, uh, professor and researcher in stuttering. After that experience, um, I decided this is what I want to do with my life. So I changed my major to speech language pathology. Uh, shortly after, um, I started doing research as an undergraduate with Rondi Gobble.

And that, that continued into my master's program. Um, you know, I, of course, fell in love with working with and helping people who stutter. And so, [00:06:00] shortly after I graduated with my master's degree, My, you know, professor and mentor Rodney Gobble, he actually moved to Binghamton, New York from Toledo, Ohio, and he asked me if I wanted to, you know, come over to Binghamton and, uh, study, um, with him to get my PhD, uh, and to work as a clinical instructor with Binghamton, and so that's what ultimately led me here, um, was very fortunate that Last year, after completing all of my courses in my PhD program, I was hired as an assistant professor here at Binghamton.

Um, now I, you know, it's, it's, it's my dream job. I get to work with clients who stutter. I get to do research. I get to teach. I wouldn't have thought, you know, [00:07:00] five years ago that I would be where I am today. Uh, but I really glad, I'm really glad that I am. Wow. And congratulations on, um, becoming a professor.

That's amazing and such an accomplishment. And so happy to know another, um,

professor out there that's teaching like the next generation of People who are interested in stuttering or just speech challenges in general and having someone with lived experience. So that's amazing. And thank, thank you for doing all you do for our, our community. Um, so what made you want to like focus on like the workplace and like.

Stereotyping in the workplace. [00:08:00] Cause I'm sure there was like so many different things you could have studied around stuttering. Like why, why this topic? My PhD program, um, is unique in that it's a inter professional, inter. disciplinary program. Um, a lot of speech language pathologists that I know who get their PhD do so in a communication science and disorders specific PhD.

Um, whereas my PhD is in community research and action. Um, and through that experience, you know, I've, I've really learned and have gained an appreciation that the research that I do And that we do, you know, as a, as a, um, academic community [00:09:00] needs to have an impact, a positive impact on the people that we're doing research with and doing research for.

So I really wanted my research to focus in on something that a lot of people who stutter could benefit from and that, um, could be easily translatable, uh, to someone's life. And, uh, um, working with Rodney Gobble, um, you know, one of his special specialty areas is stereotypes and stigma. Um, you know, I've worked with him and known him for, gosh, like going on almost 10 years now.

And so I wanted to take the research that he's done in the past and that we've done together that I've helped with and, um, and apply it to things that, again, could Be easily [00:10:00] translatable to help people who stutter. Um, I think that stereotypes, um, especially as they come up at work, you know, I mean, most everybody works and has has experiences working.

Um, and there's more that we. Good to understand about those experiences, um, as well as why stereotypes exist, um, in the general population. And yeah, so let's, I'd love to ask about your, your first published paper ever, which is amazing. Um, how perceived communication skills needed for

careers influences vocational stereotyping of people who stutter. So I'd love if you can talk about your, your research, like what question were you like trying to [00:11:00] investigate and what you found. Um, and this is specifically for like, um, so this is specifically for like assessing communication skills for when you're applying to a job.

Yeah. Yeah. So really good question. Um, and first of all, uh, titles for research papers are so difficult. It's so hard to like, you know, wrap everything up into one in the title. Um, so the, the. Question that drove this study was, um,

what, what, what factors influence vocational stereotyping? Um, there's a lot of past research that's shown that vocational stereotyping exists, and they've all used this, um, uh, measure, um, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a survey called the Vocational Advice [00:12:00] Scale, where someone is given a career. Um, there's 43 different careers on the, on the scale, and then they're asked to rate their agreement of whether or not they would advise a person who stutters.

Who's qualified for that job to pursue that job. So, you know, strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree, um, is how that's set up. Um, so we know that in the past, certain careers have been, um, less advised over other careers. But the nuance to that, like why is that specifically, um, hasn't been investigated.

So in this study, we made the hypothesis that people advise or advise against pursuing certain careers [00:13:00] based on how much communication skill they think is needed for that career. Um, so we added a new, a new scale, a new survey, um, that goes through all 43 careers. on that vocational advice scale and ask participants to rate how much communication skill they think is needed to be successful in a career.

Um, so, you know, we saw, of course, like careers like lawyer, judge, parole officer, um, Protestant minister, those all received very high You know, I think this requires lots of communication skill to be successful. And we saw careers like accountant, um, computer science engineer, like engineer, um, computer software [00:14:00] programmer, things like that received much lower scores.

Um, where participants felt like those careers needed less communication. Um, and the reason we did that is because, I mean, like, I have a friend who's an engineer. He talks a lot in his job, right? He's presenting all the time. But I think when someone who's not familiar with engineer thinks about what they do, they might think, oh, it's someone who's at their computer a lot, doesn't talk very much.

So instead of assuming that an engineer does have lots of communication or doesn't, we ask people just to rate how much do you think this career, um, depends on communication skill. Yeah. And, and, and how is, how is that connected to stuttering? Yeah. So then we, we went [00:15:00] in and we did a, you know, the fancy terminology would be correlation and, uh, linear regression.

Um, and we compared the rating of communication needed for a career and then the advice that person provided for a person who stutters to pursue that career. So, for example, the, the, the hypothesis was lawyer is, people are going to say this requires five out of five communication skill, but we hypothesize that they would, that, um, believing that lawyer requires lots of communication would then result in, I would advise against a person whose letter is to pursue that career.

And so that, that was, that was the hypothesis and, uh, so getting into the, the results of what we [00:16:00] found, um, we found that in general, the higher the perceived communication skills required, so the more communication someone thought a job required, the less likely they were to advise a person who's tender is to pursue that career.

Least advised jobs were thought to require most communication skill. Most advised jobs were thought to require the least amount of communication skill. Yeah. I mean, that makes, that makes a lot of sense to me. Is there anything that like surprised you as you were going through your research or was it really like, did, did it, um, like lead to more questions?

Like, I guess, yeah, like, um, because that seems like. You know, like if I'm like, if, if like a career advisor at my school, for [00:17:00] example, was like helping me out with like what jobs to apply for. I'm like, I, it makes a lot of sense that that would be the thought of a process. That was another question we had, um, especially because the people that we were going to be distributing the survey to could be people who provide career advice.

So one of the ways, one of the additional analyses that we did was we asked people, do you provide career advice as a part of your job? What we have found is that whether you provide career advice or not, um, you provide similar levels of advice. So, so those, in other words, those who provide advice, uh, those who provide career advice on a regular basis fall within that.

Less likely to advise careers that require lots of communication skill. [00:18:00] Um, and more likely to advise someone who stutters to pursue careers that they think require less communication. Yeah. Like I've interviewed so many people on the show and so many of them have a job where it requires them to talk a lot.

So it's just, yeah. Um, and I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who got advice. And followed it around like other job, job pathways. Um, you know, like you're kind of, uh, a case study, like you're a professor and I'm sure like that is. One of the jobs where it has like the highest amount of, of speaking, like you're, you literally have to speak in front of a classroom like every day.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's things like that, like that's at the heart of this, um, study is that there's this thing in, in quantitative research called significance, right? [00:19:00] So if you have a significant finding, that's when you know. That the question you asked is like, like you, like you really have something here.

Like there's really something going on. Um, now the, the significance, um, in all of the careers, it was actually really mixed. So you had, you know, some careers that were most advised. It was significantly correlated with low communication, but it wasn't always the case. And vice versa, um, whereas you would think that, especially at the high end and low end, that they would all be significant, but they weren't.

Funny enough, the most advised career and the least advised career were not significant. Significantly related to perceived communication [00:20:00] ability. And so what that tells us is there's other things going on, right? Now, there we found that 78 percent of the reason why. someone provided the advice they did was because of perceived communication skill.

So even though significance was mixed, you know, a huge reason for the advice provided was Whether or not they thought someone who stutters has good communication because they're thinking about communication skill. Um, and that's, that's the other thing going on here too, is that we, we, we, we assumed, no doubt, like this is just an assumption, that the reason that you would advise against careers that require lots of communication skill is because you believe you [00:21:00] have the stereotype that someone who stutters isn't a good communicator or doesn't have good, good communication skills.

Which we know is false. Yeah. Exactly. Um, but it gets that in the general public, people have that stereotype that stuttering is equated with poor com, com, com, com, com, communication. And that's really the first research of that kind that kind of connects, um, the stereotyping of stuttering to having, like, not strong communication skills.

But the first study that connects vocational stereotyping to, to, to communication skills, I think it's, it's always been implied. Um, there's other research that shows, you know, some of the, [00:22:00] um, stereotypes and even those tend to be mixed, right? Like in general, people don't have a all negative or all positive view.

It's kind of like. mixed feelings or unsure how to feel and it's because they don't, a lot of people just don't know what stuttering is like you brought up. Right. You, you, you had asked the question of like what were there other questions that came up, um, because of the study and you know, the answer is yes.

Uh, first, first of all, okay, so 78 percent of the variance is because of perceived communication skills. What's What else is involved? What, what, what are some other reasons then? You're still left with what, like 20, 22%. Um, that's, that, that's I important to know as well. And you've been working on another research project on the [00:23:00] labor force.

Um, I know it's not peer reviewed yet, but can you talk a little bit about the findings? I know you've talked about it at a few conferences. Overall, I talked with people who stutter. I also talked with speech language pathologists who have worked with people who stutter. Um, and discrimination.

microaggressions, you know, um, ableism, some of those buzzwords that we talk about, you know, those things came up and people who stutter do have experienced discrimination, um, overt discrimination, being told I'm not hiring you because you stutter, um, or maybe some covert discrimination, right? Knowing that you are the best candidate for this [00:24:00] promotion, but your boss is interviewing people who have been like, you know, like, who are below you and seniority or haven't had much experience.

So you're asking that question to yourself, like, I'm the one who's most qualified. Why am I not being interviewed and being left to wonder? Am I being discriminated against? Um, I will say though, that people who stutter reported. Many more positive experiences than negative ones. You know, everyone had that, those few negative experiences.

Um, which are, you know, I mean, like, I mean, you know, let's be clear. I mean, those are awful. And those really do kind of shape how you feel going forward. Um, as you're looking, looking, looking for work, working, seeking promotions. [00:25:00] Uh, but there were more often than not, more positive experiences reported. And, uh.

One of the biggest things that was explored as well was how much the negative self image or the negative self talk, um, you know, all those synonyms like self efficacy, confidence in yourself, um, all of those internalized beliefs and those internal thoughts, uh, seem to be what held back people who stuttered the most.

Um, you know, thinking, um, This, this interview is going to go really, really bad if I stutter. I'm not going to get the job. Um, I'm going to get laughed at. And then coming out on the other side and saying, you know what, that actually went really well. I wasn't laughed at. My, the [00:26:00] person interviewing me was, um, accepting or neutral.

Or didn't, didn't seem to be, you know, uh, didn't seem to have any negative thoughts about me. Yeah. And did anything come up around, um, like, like, um, about different people, like telling the like employer about their stutter versus just trying their best to just sound as fluent as possible and not wanting to even mention it for the risk that by disclosing that might.

You know, um, that might prevent them to get the job. What I was really interested in, um, when I talked to those same people about their experiences, I asked, well, how did you navigate those experiences? What, what has helped? Disclosure of stuttering, being open about stuttering, sharing your [00:27:00] experiences with stuttering, um, that was shared by people who stutter and SLP's alike as a very helpful, very positive navigation strategy.

Um, um, you know, all of the SLPs that I spoke with said that their clients who were most successful, um, who were the least stressed about work, who are most successful in interviews, they saw that they were the ones who disclosed stuttering and who talked about it as a positive trait as something that, you know, um, that they were bringing to the table and not something that would hold them back.

Um, You know, there were participants, um, who talked about hiding their stuttering for a long time, um, and, and, uh, you know, as you [00:28:00] said, trying really hard to be fluent, and they talked about just that, how much energy and pressure they put on themselves, um, when doing that, and, you know, some of those participants talked about doing that for 20 years, and then you know, Making that change and being open and disclosing and feeling like there's this huge weight lifted off their shoulders.

Um, some, some participants talked about that was, like, that was their strategy and that's what they stuck with. Um, and that's how they wanted to deal with stuttering. And, uh, you know, I think it's really important to note here that It's always up to the individual how they want to approach, um, their job and disclosing stuttering.

And, you know, not every person who stutters, um, had positive experiences, uh, when they disclosed [00:29:00] stuttering. Uh, but that was really the exception and not, and not the norm. Um, most participants. With most people, whether it be their, their boss, their co workers, even clients that we're working with, uh, talking about what stuttering is, giving it a name, you know, saying this, this, this is what's happening, uh, even, even adding some humor to it, um, you know, there was one person who, a part of her job was She had to say a pledge that people would repeat after her, you know?

So like she would say a line and they would repeat and she would say a line and they would repeat. And she always opened up, opened that up by saying, repeat after me, but don't repeat the stutters. And that would get a little bit of a laugh from the, you know, the people that were doing the pledge, they would get a laugh from the crowd.[00:30:00]

And it was a way of disclosing stuttering and saying what's going on and saying that, you know, I'm not, I'm not ashamed of this. It's just something that happens, um, using some humor and not being self deprecating, right? Just I stutter and this is what it is and I'm comfortable with it. My last

question about your research that I want to get into, um, um, like you, you know, you're like providing therapy, um, is, um, like from, like, what is your goal, I guess, with this research? Because I feel like this is so important. And I, like, my, Thoughts always go to like policy and like, like, like [00:31:00] changing like systems and stuff.

So is there like an impact or a goal that you ultimately want to make with your research to really, you know, um, change the way like the workforce. There's a whole conversation around this, you know, whether the burden should rest on the shoulders of people who stutter to stick up for themselves, to advocate for themselves.

Should it? Is it fair? You know, I'm, I'm probably not. Uh, but the reality is that that burden does Rest on the shoulders of people who stutter. It's up to them to advocate for themselves. It's up for them. It's up to them to say what they need at work, you know, um, and [00:32:00] I hope that policies will change in the future as we, I mean, I think we've all seen it now.

I mean, people are more. accommodating and accepting of all differences and all disabilities. And, uh, I think in general that that's a trend that continues, you know, more and more people are more accepting and are thinking about, you know, how can I be more like, just like, how can I be nicer? How can I be a better human to other people?

Um, and we've seen that in the workforce, I think, too, um, as I, as I spoke with people who stutter, uh, in my study, uh, so yeah, that, that's my thought is that I want, I want to be able to ship, to do research that's translatable, that can help people who stutter now, um, and then perhaps it, it will lead to more policy changes and, [00:33:00] and things like that.

Tell, um, tell me about the stuttering clinic you have at. Binghamton in addition to Um, the new, then the new stuttering research program, we've, we've had a stuttering clinic for the, for the past, um, two years here. And, uh, most, most of my clients have done virtual therapy. So if you're in New York state, you know, definitely reach out, um, if you're interested in therapy.

Yeah. I mean, even if you're not in New York state, um, we're currently working on, you know, Doing clinic as a research endeavor, um, without getting into the specifics, if we do, if we mix research and clinic together. We can see really like anyone in, [00:34:00] in the whole country. Um, so, you know, things are always being worked on.

Um, but, you know, if you're someone who is like looking for therapy or has, has wanted to explore therapy options, Um, I would definitely encourage you to, yeah, like reach out to me. Um, reach out to the Binghamton Clinic. Um, we're always happy to. Talk with people, and even if it's just like helping you get connected with someone in your area, um, as well, we're always happy to do that.

So you're a person who stutters, and a speech language pathologist, and a researcher who studies, um, stuttering. I know there's been a lot of conversations around terminology, and people who stutter often say that they don't really like how some of the Health field and research field describes people who stutter or [00:35:00] describe stuttering in general.

Um, is that something that has come up in, in your world? Being both a student and, and a professor at the same time. Um, I always hate when my professors say this, but I say it a lot myself as, uh, the answer to the question is, it depends. Right? Everyone has their own thoughts and opinions on this, and I don't think anyone is wrong.

Um, because we all conceptualize the world differently. You know, I've, I've taken to, well, if I think about speech language pathology, pathology implies there's something wrong, there's something going on. Um, we deal with communication disorders. When a child is having a hard time saying their S sounds, It's very easy to label that, that's an articulation disorder, that's something we want to get better.

Um, you know, [00:36:00] with stuttering it's different. Uh, you know, the reality is, for most people who stutter, Um, you know, they, uh, most people who continue to stutter after childhood, it's a lifelong, uh, thing that you have, you know, it's with you for life.

It's something that you'll have to navigate, um, throughout your whole life and it can look different depending on what stage of life you're, you're in. Um, so I've, I've, I've taken to calling stuttering a neurophysiological difference. Um, because we know that there's neurophysiological differences in the brain, right?

Um, there's people who are much smarter, smarter than me who have done research on brain differences and there's something really, truly different about people who stutter. [00:37:00] Uh, now, when it comes to, is it a disability? Is it a difference? Is it verbal diversity? You know, it's where it gets challenging because for a lot of people, disability has a very negative stereotype, negative stigma.

And that could be an hour long conversation as well, and, but it's also important to know that as we're talking about work, um, navigating work, we could very easily bring in, like, the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities.

If we look at how judges have ruled, um, there's been people who stutter who have sued their employers for discrimination and they've won. Um, if you look at the definition of disability in the [00:38:00] Americans with Disabilities Act amendment, um, stuttering falls right in that definition of what a disability is.

So we think about disability as a way to describe our experiences. And to get the help and the legal rights that we deserve, um, I think that's a conversation that we can be, that we should be having, is like, disability is a way to describe your experience, um, and that you are at a disability, um, in communicating at times.

Um, and that the goal is to make, you know, one of my participants in my research study defined it as making your workplace stutter friendly, building a stutter friendly environment for yourself. Um, that's the ultimate goal, [00:39:00] and I think using the terminology that you need to, to make your workplace stuttering friendly, um,

I think that might be the best way forward, you know, um, and, uh, being able to explain to someone what stuttering is in the shortest amount of time possible so that they can understand, hey, this person can You know, isn't anxious, this person isn't shy, this person isn't unintelligent, it's just they stutter and their speech sounds a little bit different.

And I think when you bring in the word disability, people tend to understand that a little bit better, um, than speech impediment, for example, sounds very, uh, negative. Um, or it might, it might to some people. It, it, it, it does to [00:40:00] me. Um, speech difference, speech, speech challenge. You know, that, that makes, that is much more neutral terminology, um, but it might also then make someone ask the question, well, is it a challenge that you need help with?

Is it something that we can accommodate for? Whereas like a disability might, might lend more to, okay, how can I help? Um, what do you need help with? And, uh, I mean, we don't know the answer to that question, right? And. It's I guess we do. It's it, it depends. Thank you so much, Cody, for being on Proud Stutter.

And that's it for this episode of Proud Stutter. This episode of Proud Stutter was produced and edited [00:41:00] by me, Maya Chupkov. Our music was composed by Augusto Diniz and our artwork by Mara Ezekiel and Noah Chupkov. If you have an idea or want to be part of a future episode, visit us at www. proudstutter.

com. And if you like the show, you can leave us a review wherever you are listening to this podcast. Want to leave us a voicemail? Check out our show notes for the number to call in. More importantly, tell your friends to listen too. Until we meet again, thanks for listening. Be proud and be you.