What'd Ya Say? Wednesday: Stutterer on Spain's Reality TV

Now a days, TV shows require some type of diversity, whether it be ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, childhood adversity, illness... what's sort of special about this video is that a contestant, Juan Carlos, on Gran Hermano in Spain doesn't have an illness that's viewed as much on reality (or many other) shows. Stuttering.



What is stuttering? Well think back to Looney Tunes. Remember how episodes would end with our favorite pig, Porky Pig, exclaiming, "Th-th -th-that's all folks!" The part of the utterance where Porky Pig is stuck on 'th' is considered stuttering. There's actually many types of stuttering (also known as stammering). Some examples include those at the single sound level (h-h-how are you?), entire words (dad-dad-dad, I want that) or even phrases (are we done- are we done- are we done, mommy?). Of course, they don't always go on for 3 repetitions, sometimes more. Even prolongation is considered a stammer; so, when Daffy Duck says "That's dissssssspicable", it could be thought of as a stammer. These are just some examples, you can find more types of stammering in one of the links below for further reading.



Aside from this, there's also different 'causes' of stuttering, for lack of a better term. In Juan Carlos' case, I believe his is developmental and tends to run in his family. Now, don't count me 100% on that, but I'm pretty sure. Also, for most developmental cases, the person outgrows the condition as they age. Some don't. As for him, if my memory serves me right, his older relative that had this communication disorder as well had grown out of it at some point. Juan Carlos still hasn't, and neither has his younger relative who has fluency issues as well. So hopefully that changes soon!



In addition to developmental stammering, there's two others as well- neurogenic and psychogenic. If you'd like to learn more about those, and developmental, fell free to search or visit the second link below "Causes of Stammering".



Over all, I'm glad they had a contestant with a speech disorder on the show. In his case, it could've been a con, as some people may not have had patience listening to him, but that doesn't seem the case! He made quite a few friends on the show, and from what I saw, it mostly occurred when he was nervous, excited or had the focus on him. Despite those kinks, he did great on the show, and it's awesome that they casted him!



Types of Stammering: http://www.wordsinmotionspeech.com/types-of-stuttering.html



"Causes" of Stammering": http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/speech-pathology/speech-language-disorders/stuttering/types-stuttering.cfm

Photo: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG7cbKDenXpE4EGLvOkIQ-NDIxtvSnr089ldU4v3fnYElPZVdWKmMtPBCKNlLUEG4OtV3OWc8qE81mRJ_muxZdoxB0kbG1Bblt3ZmwifTrAodD4fU8S4qHgAiZhnsyYafc7lDrfd3a6Y0/s1600/thats-all-folks.jpg