International Stuttering Awareness Day

Since 1998, the International Day of Stuttering People or the International Day for the Dissemination of Information about Stuttering has been celebrated in the world on October 22.

The idea of establishing this date was born with the support of the International Association of Stuttering People, founded in 1995 and positioning itself as “the mouthpiece of all stuttering people at the international level.” According to the ISA, about 1% of the world’s population suffers from stuttering.

According to the International Classification of Diseases, stuttering is a speech disorder characterized by frequent repetition or prolongation of sounds, syllables and words, as well as frequent stops or indecision in speech, breaking its rhythmic flow. Stuttering is often associated with logophobia (verbophobia) — the fear of saying what is the consequence or cause of stuttering. With the wrong attitude of society towards stuttering people, this speech disorder can have a serious impact on the emotional state, and hence on a person’s life. Which often leads to stress, social anxiety and self-isolation. Children who stutter often become the object of bullying.

Therefore, the organization of the International Day of Stuttering People is only one of the large-scale projects of the ISA. On this Day, which is dedicated to a specific topic every year, various conferences, seminars, meetings and a number of social events are held aimed at raising awareness of the wider community about the problems and difficulties that stuttering people have to face in everyday life.