Emily Blunt said stuttering impacts one’s sense of self-worth: “It’s nearly always misidentified as a nervous disposition or a psychological issue. This is wrong.”
Emily Blunt is an actor par excellence, who has accomplished quite a lot in her long career. But, even she has had her fair share of struggles, one of which has got to do with speech. The ‘Quiet Place’ actor recently opened up about her childhood stutter, and how being in the acting business helped her with it.
Blunt, who is married to actor John Krasinski, recently said she considers herself to be a stutterer till date. Speaking during Variety’s Power of Women event in Los Angeles, California, the actor said that when she speaks, certain words still get stuck, such as the word ‘phone’, which she called “a bit of a nightmare”.
The 40-year-old star talked about her stuttering problem while accepting the ‘Alumni Award’ for her work with the American Institute for Stuttering, with whom she has been associated for 17 years now, People magazine reports. “I’m so grateful to accept this tonight,” Blunt began her speech, adding: “I am grateful to shed light on [stuttering], because it is a disability that lives very often in the shadows alongside its great friends, fear and shame and humiliation.” She also mentioned that stuttering affects about 3 million Americans.
The mother-of-two also said in her speech that stuttering impacts one’s sense of self-worth. “It’s nearly always misidentified as a nervous disposition or a psychological issue. This is wrong. This is wrong. It is neurological, it’s biological, it’s often hereditary, and it’s not your fault.”
“These are facts I just wish I had known early on, because I stuttered brilliantly for years and all through my childhood,” Blunt was quoted as saying. She said environments challenge her. For instance, if she is scared or under pressure to persuade or convince someone, she will stutter. “Don’t ever ask me to pitch you anything ever. I think maybe I’m not sure to this day how much verbal flippity-flops I do to substitute words that are easier to say than others.”
According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, stuttering usually starts between 2 and 6 years of age, and many children go through normal periods of disfluency lasting less than 6 months. Stuttering lasting longer than this may need treatment.
Possible causes of stuttering include:
1. Family history: Many people who stutter have a family member who also stutters.
2. Brain differences: People who stutter may have small differences in the way their brain works during speech.
The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders defines stuttering as a speech disorder characterised by repetition of sounds, syllables, or words; prolongation of sounds; and interruptions in speech known as blocks. “An individual who stutters exactly knows what he or she would like to say but has trouble producing a normal flow of speech. These speech disruptions may be accompanied by struggle behaviours, such as rapid eye blinks or tremors of the lips,” it states.
It adds that speaking before a group or talking on the telephone may make a person’s stuttering more severe, while singing, reading, or speaking in unison may temporarily reduce stuttering.
Blunt also said in her speech that stuttering can impact your identity, and that it is “deeply emotional, because a stutter — it’s like an imposter that’s living in your body who doesn’t pay rent ever. It completely and utterly misrepresents who you are as a person.”
“It can limit you from getting a job no matter how qualified you are, because you could be deemed unconvincing or off-putting or unintelligent. It can limit children from finding meaningful relationships, being bullied and cast out. It can limit you from finding love,” she continued.
Blunt also advised non-stutterers to be patient with a person who is stuttering. “Just know that every word they say takes effort and courage. And look them in the eye and just be patient. Don’t tell them to slow down or breathe, or spit it out.”
