تاثیر لکنت زبان در فرصت های شغلی و عملکرد شغلی

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact that stuttering has on job performance and employability. The method involved administration of a 17-item survey that was completed by 232 people who stutter, age 18 years or older. Results indicated that more than 70% of people who stutter agreed that stuttering decreases one's chances of being hired or promoted. More than 33% of people who stutter believed stuttering interferes with their job performance, and 20% had actually turned down a job or promotion because of their stuttering. Results also indicated that men and minorities were more likely to view stuttering as handicapping than were women and Caucasians. These findings suggest that people who stutter believe stuttering to be handicapping in the workplace. The results may be helpful for clinicians who work with people who stutter.

The U.S. economy underwent drastic change during the last century. Ruben (2000) reported that at the beginning of the twentieth century, 80% of Americans were employed in jobs that depended on manual skills. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, 62% of Americans made their living in jobs that depended on their communication skills. Ruben stated that employers who do not require strong verbal communication skills still expect their employees to be able to keep up in today's fast-paced, communication-driven workplace. For people who stutter, this expectation can have a tremendous impact on their quality of life, especially with regard to employment opportunities and job satisfaction. Because so many jobs now require good communication skills, many, if not most stutterers, may be unable to attain the social status that accompanies the more prestigious occupations and professions (Van Riper, 1982). It is not uncommon to find people whose stuttering has negatively impacted their work or even their entire choice of careers (Crichton-Smith, 2002 and Peters and Starkweather, 1989). Although there may be several reasons stuttering negatively impacts one's work and/or career choice, it is fair to say that this is not simply because it takes people who stutter longer to say what they need to say. According to Gilmore (1974), equal opportunity for the communicatively disabled can be restricted in two ways: (1) by the negative attitudes of the non-disabled, and (2) by the resulting negative attitudes the disabled may develop towards themselves. The communicatively disabled, writes Gilmore, can experience rejection, penalty, and consequent anxiety, frustration, and withdrawal. People who stutter, therefore, may be under-employed because of both the attitudes of society as well as their own attitudes about their speech. It has been well documented that the general public has a less positive view of people who stutter (Hulit & Wirtz, 1994). In a review of the literature, Lass et al. (1995) noted that this has been found for a wide variety of groups, including college students, teachers, school administrators, and speech-language pathologists, just to name a few. Nurses have judged physicians who stuttered to be more afraid, tense, and nervous and to be less mature, intelligent, secure, and competent than physicians who do not stutter (Silverman & Bongey, 1997). College students have rated lawyers who stutter as being less intelligent, employable, competent and educated than lawyers who do not (Silverman & Paynter, 1990). In a study of vocational rehabilitation counselors’ attitudes toward stuttering, Hurst and Cooper (1983b) found that 50% of the counselors agreed with the statement that most stutterers have psychological problems. Almost three-quarters (70%) of the vocational rehabilitation counselors indicated that employers appear to discriminate on the basis of speech problems alone and 78% indicated that stuttering appears to be vocationally handicapping. In the largest survey to date of employers’ attitudes toward stuttering, Hurst and Cooper (1983a) found that many employers held negative attitudes toward people who stutter. In their survey, 30% of employers agreed that stuttering interferes with job performance; 40% agreed that stuttering interferes with promotion possibilities; 44% agreed that stutterers should seek employment which requires little speaking; 85% agreed that stuttering decreases employability to some degree; and only 9% of employers agreed that the stutterer should be hired when given a situation in which two applicants are equally qualified in all other respects. The authors concluded that stuttering is a significant vocationally handicapping problem. While the attitudes of those working with (and hiring) people who stutter are very important, the attitudes of stutterers themselves may play an even greater role in their employment and promotion possibilities. Considered together, the fact that people who do not stutter possess relatively negative views of people who stutter and that individuals tend to modify their self-concept over time so that it matches the perceptions that others have of them (McCrosky, Daly, Richmond, & Falcione, 1977), it should not be a surprise if some, if not many, adults who stutter possess low opinions regarding their abilities. Woods and Williams (1976) stated that such a pervasive stereotype concerning stutterers’ personality traits, rather than just their speech behaviors, may have a powerful influence upon the stutterers’ self-evaluations and actions. For the person who stutters, this influence begins early in life and continues into adulthood. Blood, Blood, Tellis, and Gabel (2001) found that adolescents who stutter reported significantly poorer self-perceived communicative competence and significantly higher levels of communicative apprehension than did their nonstuttering peers. Once the adolescent reaches adulthood and enters the workforce, these negative beliefs can have a powerful effect. Craig and Calver (1991) stated that it is not uncommon for stutterers to work in positions below their potential as a result of either their lack of self-confidence or their inability to communicate effectively. Empirical studies of this issue are, however, relatively scarce. Hayhow, Cray, and Enderby (2002) used a questionnaire to examine the impact that stuttering had on people's lives. Examples that people who stutter gave included not choosing the career they wanted, avoiding jobs that involved telephone work or verbal presentations, and believing they would not be promoted because they stutter. Some respondents even reported being discriminated against by being told not to try for promotion. The authors found that only 12% of their participants felt that stuttering had no impact on their occupation. Crichton-Smith (2002) explored the communicative experiences of fourteen adults who stutter. Twelve of the 14 participants felt that stuttering affected their working lives in some way. For at least some of the participants, their stuttering influenced their choice of work and left them dissatisfied with their careers. In a survey of 282 people who stutter, Rice and Kroll (1994) found that approximately 16% of people who stutter had been told that they would not be hired because of their stuttering. More than half of the people who stutter agreed that their capabilities had been misjudged by their supervisor because of their stuttering, and more than one-third reported that their stuttering had led to negative performance appraisals at work. The authors concluded that stuttering has a negative impact on performance evaluation and promotion possibilities, and that stutterers face challenges and discrimination in the workplace. Clearly, more research is needed in this area. As Conture (1996) suggested, the assessment of successful treatment needs to take into account the handicapping aspects of stuttering, such as how treatment affected job history and communication efficiency in the workplace. Thus, the primary purpose of the present study was to assess whether people who stutter believe that stuttering has a negative impact on employment opportunities and job performance. A secondary purpose, if findings indicate that people who stutter do perceive that stuttering impacts employability and job performance, was to assess whether factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, and stuttering severity significantly impact these beliefs.

This study found that people who stutter believe that stuttering has a negative impact on their employability and job performance. Women were less likely than men, and Caucasians were less likely than minorities, to believe that stuttering has a negative impact on these issues. Many people who stutter also included narratives explaining how stuttering has hampered their careers. These findings indicate that stuttering therapy for many adults who stutter needs to include goals and outcome measures that specifically address the impact that the stuttering is having on the client's career.