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Study Shows Stuttering "Not Bad" For Well-Being. Here Are Some Famous Stutterers Who Turned Out Great.
A group of Australian researchers spent years analyzing thousands of pre-schoolers, and on Monday published their findings: they discovered early-childhood stammering doesn't harm kids' well-being — in fact, it might actually help children develop verbal and non-verbal skills.
Stuttering, also called stammering, affects about one in ten children. Those who suffer from it, according to researchers, score higher in tests gauging their understanding of verbal and non-verbal cues. Some kids naturally outgrow stuttering, while some struggle with it into adulthood. We all know The King's Speech was based on the true story of Britain's King George VI, but who else struggled with a stutter? Keep clicking...
New Study: Stuttering Doesn't Hurt, And Might Actually Help
A group of Australian researchers spent years analyzing thousands of pre-schoolers, and on Monday published their findings: they discovered early-childhood stammering doesn't harm kids' well-being — in fact, it might actually help children develop verbal and non-verbal skills.
Stuttering, also called stammering, affects about one in ten children. Those who suffer from it, according to researchers, score higher in tests gauging their understanding of verbal and non-verbal cues. Some kids naturally outgrow stuttering, while some struggle with it into adulthood. We all know The King's Speech was based on the true story of Britain's King George VI, but who else struggled with a stutter? Keep clicking...
James Earl Jones, a.k.a. Mufasa
This one is a shocker. James Earl Jones, owner of one of the greatest voices in cinematic history — he voiced Mufasa and Darth Vader — spent eight years mute due to his childhood stutter.
"I was a stutterer. I couldn't talk. So my first year of school was my first mute year, and then those mute years continued until I got to high school," Jones has said. One of his high-school teachers forced Jones to write poetry and practice public speaking, and these days, Jones' shelves are stacked high with Tonys, Emmys, and even an Academy Award.
Joe Biden
Sure, we've all tried to push Mitt Romney to the back of our minds, but who could forget Joe Biden's effortless dismissal of Paul Ryan during their debate last year? Biden stuttered well into his twenties, and now happens to be the vice-president of the United States.
As a kid, Biden was teased for his stutter, which continued into his college years. He overcame it by practicing reading poetry in front of the mirror, and we're going to say that it might have helped save us all from Mitt Romney becoming President.
Moses
Ah, Moses: liberator of the Hebrews, important figure in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. According to numerous religious scholars, the Bible, and this scientific paper, Moses was also a stutterer.
According to neurological scientists, there's evidence in the Bible that Moses practiced his public speaking to overcome his stammer, which is the first example of self-overcoming a speech impediment in history.
Emily Blunt
Much like Moses, we have, um, Emily Blunt, who stuttered throughout her childhood and her early teenage years.
"Between the age of 7 and 14 was when it was really bad. And around 12 it was at its worst," she said. "Not an awkward age at all to be unable to speak." Blunt has since played second-fiddle only to Meryl Streep (because she's bloody Meryl Streep) in The Devil Wears Prada, and has appeared on screens everywhere before and after she won our hearts with the immortal line "I'm just one stomach flu away from my goal weight."
Blunt credits her high-school teacher with helping her overcome her stammer through acting practice, and she now sits on the directors' board of the American Institute For Stutering.
Charles Darwin
The bearded godfather of evolution, Darwin suffered with an increasingly severe stutter throughout his life. Fortunately, that didn't stop him from declaring that evolution was, you know, a thing, which is good because otherwise we'd probably still be of the opinion that people fell onto the planet and have remained the same ever since. Oh, wait.
Aristotle
Good old Aristotle. One of the most influential Western figures of all time, Aristotle had significant influence on Plato, Socrates, Alexander The Great, and — deep breath now — the fields of ethics, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, and metaphysics.
Aristotle did all of this with a very severe stutter, which he thought was due to a malfunctioning tongue. This was incorrect, but we'll let him off because he was right about, you know, a lot of other things.
