The inner battle against stuttering

When Fr Ivan Scicluna was a child attending religion lessons, he would feel frustration build up as he failed to pronounce some words like Christ while reading in class.

The young boy would stick on the first syllable but when he went home to his parents they assured him there was nothing wrong. Now the Franciscan Capuchin knows he is a stutterer and, after battling with his speech condition for years, he has finally embraced it as a part of who he is. As a result, he stutters less but, most importantly, he has learnt to live with it.

“I was healed the day I was willing to celebrate Mass as a stutterer. That was when all the therapy made sense,” Fr Scicluna said as he shared his story to raise awareness on the occasion of World Stuttering Day, marked today.

As a child, Fr Scicluna used to stutter when reading aloud but his parents always shrugged off the problem. “I knew there was something wrong... But I got used to denying it. I knew I was not meant to be stuttering and set standards for myself, which I could not reach,” he said.

When he decided to become a Franciscan priest, at the age of 18, his stuttering became an issue. How would he celebrate Mass in front of a congregation?

“I was about to leave twice because of the stuttering. I would read and start stuttering during our group prayers... I’d feel a sense of insecurity... There was anger at God: Why did He choose me for this vocation and why did He choose me this way? There was anger at myself as I was feeling helpless,” he recalled in a calm voice.

Throughout this tumultuous time, Fr Scicluna did not tell any of his fellow novices anything. The only person he opened up to was his spiritual director who urged him to trust in God.

“This is true but you also have to deal with the human part,” he said adding that he then decided to start attending therapy when he realised he had to face the problem.

His therapist suggested he research the subject and start speaking about his stuttering with his parents, his friends and other novices. Now there was no longer anything to hide.

He started adopting speech tools that helped him cope better and practised reading out loud with the help of friends.

“I initially went to therapy with the attitude that the stuttering had to stop. But, when I was in Rome – eight years into my formation – someone said something that helped me realise I had to embrace my stuttering as part of who I was,” he said adding this was a turning point in his life and he even wrote his thesis about priests who stuttered.

“To me, stuttering was a confirmation that it was not I who picked the vocation. It chose me,” he said.

Shouting match

One per cent of the population stutters and the speech condition is more frequent in males, affecting one girl for every four boys, according to speech therapist Joseph Agius.

He explained the government-run Speech Language Department provided therapy services for anyone who stuttered, starting from pre-school children — where parents were also guided – and school-aged children.

The department also offers programmes for adolescents and adults as needs vary through age.

At a younger age, bullying was one of the biggest hurdles for children who stuttered, which was why it was important to educate school children about stuttering, Dr Agius said. The direct cause of stuttering is unknown but research shows there can be a genetic link or it may be caused by environmental factors. In the majority of cases, stuttering is a lifelong condition, which is why people are encouraged to work on their attitude towards it.