I did not want anyone to know I stuttered, but I knew there was something different about me. I was afraid to talk to anyone about myself. My grades suffered all the way through school. It is my contention stuttering stigmatizes the person who stutterers by making them feel different from the others in the group. In short, when a person begins to stutter by repeating, prolonging, or blocking, a norm of verbal interaction is left unfulfilled.
Verbal interaction operates on fluent speech.
This is because the listener responds to the words that a person who stutters is trying to say instead of focusing on the ideas. Thus, the listener becomes impatient and, perhaps worse, feels uncomfortable. The normative expectations of verbal interaction are, somehow, not being fulfilled. If effective stigmatization imposes penalties and circumscribes access to conventional means of life satisfaction, it may also provide new means to ends sought. I perceived myself as a person who was unable to communicate verbally without stuttering.