It took communication disorders professor Geoffrey Coalson three tries to walk into his first National Stuttering Association chapter meeting near Austin, Texas.
“I turned the car around and left the first three times because I didn’t want to assume the identity of someone who stutters,” Coalson said.
Several years later, Coalson now teaches and performs research at the University in the LSU Stuttering Lab and leads an NSA chapter in New Orleans.
After a lifetime of avoiding talking about his stuttering and wishing his speech disorder would go away, Coalson decided in college to look deeper into the problem he said consumed his thoughts.
A native of Tomball, Texas, Coalson earned his doctorate in speech pathology from the University of Texas at Austin, and during his time in school, he slowly gave himself permission to be a person who stutters.
According to the Stuttering Foundation of America, about 3 million people in the U.S. stutter, and about 5 percent of children go through a stuttering phase. About a quarter of them develop long-term communication disorders.
Coalson said people often believe a person stutters because he is too anxious, thinks faster than his mouth can talk or is too sensitive.
Stuttering begins between the ages of 2 and 5, according to the NSA. Its direct cause is unknown, but with treatment, some people can manage their stutters or stop stuttering completely.
Though Coalson’s first meeting with the support group was unnerving and uncomfortable, he said the opportunity for people who stutter to meet and speak with one another is worth its weight in gold.
“If people think you’re just too anxious or too sensitive, that you should just stop and think about what you’re saying, you begin to think that way,” Coalson said. “You begin to assume that you’re being overly anxious and there’s something you can do to fix this.”
Treating a stutter is not as simple as many people think, Coalson said.
While stuttering affects the way someone talks, everything from brain processing to genetics can affect stuttering.
“There’s a lot more going on upstream in terms of language processing, neurological differences, genetic predispositions and temperamental profiles,” Coalson said. “They all combine to create moments of periodic stuttering.”
In the LSU Stuttering Lab, Coalson analyzes the neurological differences between people who stutter and the rest of the population to find better ways to treat stuttering and the anxiety that follows it.
“There seem to be subtle differences in how well we hold onto the sounds in a word before speaking,” Coalson said. “One idea of stuttering is that the speech plan that has to be put together has to be complete prior to speaking, and if you’re slow putting together all of the sounds of a word, then what you have at the time of speaking is incomplete.”
Coalson said people who stutter develop mechanisms to make communicating easier on themselves. They may avoid certain words, force words out, close their eyes, look away or tap things to help them speak. These mechanisms sometimes can be a hindrance and end up as another part of the disorder.
The goal in treating stuttering, he said, is to help people who stutter gain more efficient ways to plan speech before speaking. The less efficient speech- planning pattern in those who stutter can be detected in children as young as 3 years old.
“Kids who stutter show differences in how they organize speech compared to kids who don’t stutter,” Coalson said. “They tend to rely on a less mature organization of new words and rely on it later in development compared to those who don’t stutter.”
He said it’s important that parents of children who stutter understand they are not at fault for their child’s stuttering.
“Unfortunately, my parents felt a lot of guilt about it and worried they had caused it somehow,” Coalson said. “We try to express to parents that you couldn’t make a kid stutter if you tried. There were some horrible experiments in the ’50s, and they caused a lot of problems, but they didn’t cause stuttering.”
Coalson said he tells his classes about his stutter each semester, disclosing it to students before the course becomes more rigorous. He used to diligently preplan his lectures, but over time, Coalson has allowed himself more freedom when teaching.
“I used to script my lectures,” Coalson said, because reading scripted material can lessen a stutter. “With time, I don’t have to do that as much because its my favorite topic and because I hold the stage.”
Communication disorders senior Hailey Guillot said when Coalson repeats himself during a lecture, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be on the exam — he’s just making sure students understand the material despite his stuttering. Guillot works in the LSU Stuttering Lab with Coalson and researches the effect of multilingualism on stuttering.
About five people come into the lab every month, Guillot said, but not all of them are multilingual.
Another of Coalson’s students, communication disorders junior Alix Finders, said she enjoys learning from someone who deals with the problems she is studying.
“He explains everything really well,” Flinders said. “You can tell he’s really trying.”
Coalson said the genetic aspect of stuttering may have had a hand in his own stuttering, as his grandfather stuttered, although Coalson didn’t know about it until after his death.
He said 50 percent of those who stutter have an immediate family member who stutters.
However, he’s not worried about his own children stuttering, even though his wife is pregnant with their first child — she’s also a speech pathologist.
“It’s not something I’m afraid of, because I know it can’t hold you back,” Coalson said. “As long as you can destigmatize the issue and talk about it in a way that brings about awareness without increasing concern.”
He stressed that while many people grow out of stuttering, 25 percent of children who stutter carry it with them into adulthood, and treatment for children can help.
“The field kind of started with stuttering because it was one that persisted into adulthood, and it’s noticeable and debilitating,” Coalson said. “It started in psychology and transitioned into speech pathology as it grew into its own discipline.”
Anxiety and stuttering have a unique relationship because stuttering causes anxiety, which can then worsen the stutter. Coalson said it’s natural for those who stutter to hold back.
“I realize it’s not an unnatural response. They are not overreacting,” he said. “If you ask someone who doesn’t stutter to stutter all day, they will experience tension and anxiety and unwillingness to talk. It’s a natural part of stuttering.”
The goal for adults who stutter is not always perfect fluency, Coalson said, but reducing anxiety and not being afraid to speak.
“I’m not fluent when I teach — I’ve given myself permission to be a person who stutters,” Coalson said. “People over time forget about it. As long as you can communicate, it doesn’t matter if you stutter.”