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Study Explores the Secret Strategies to Hide Stammers

People with speech problems, such as stammers, face daily stigmatization; now research in Sociology of Health & Illness explores the strategies suffers use to overcome, mask or completely hide their stammers. The research, which focused on interviews from 38 sufferers in Northern England, explored how the self-identity of the sufferers is impacted upon by their interaction with others and how attempts to manage this interaction aims to keep a chosen narrative about the self going.

Strategies included concealing the stammer, using others to mask it, acting and self-segregating from groups. This study offers important insights, increasing our understanding of the often hidden negotiations of identity work and the sometime ingenious use of space in the management of a social stigma.