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Comment by southphillyman | Hacker News Reader

Did you stutter during interviews? If so has it had any impact on whether or not you could obtain employment?

The singing thing is interesting, off the top of my head I can think of a few rappers who stutter but can clearly speak their lyrics in their songs. Maybe it's less about the dynamics of singing and more about focus shifting to a low anxiety activity?

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Stutterer here. Answer to both questions in my case: Yes and yes. I had potential employers just hang up the phone rather than wait for me to complete a sentence. I was completely unable to find a job (any job) when I fished undergrad with a 3.7 GPA in mechanical engineering. It was pretty scary at the time; I was convinced I was going to starve.

I know this anxiety and disappointment. Knowing the answers, having the information for potential investors or clients, and completely bombing. It is frustrating indeed. I usually let people (investors, clients, etc) know upfront that I have a stutter, definitely seems to help. I can't believe somebody would just hang up on you though.

I can't believe it either. I wrote a post on how I eventually sorted myself out: http://eyeofthesquid.com/blog/2014/04/25/walking-the-path/

You mention in your post that you found a good speech therapist. Can you share? Were they local?

There is a link to the therapist, Tim Mackesey, in the post. He was local (in Atlanta, GA). I saw him 14-15 years ago, not sure what his practice looks like these days.

Singing uses different neural pathways... sometimes people with speech impacted by a stroke or other injury can actually sing well.

People stutter for different reasons. I had some traumatic bullying when I was in 4-5th grade and developed a severe shyness and stutter as a result. The big switch for me was when a drama teacher encouraged me to look at the foreheads of the audience and focus on the line. Eventually your brain figures out that everybody isn't out there waiting to laugh at your expense and in my case I never stuttered again.

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