By Denise Winterman
BBC News Magazine
Former boxing world champion Chris Eubank is having his teeth fixed and hopes it will cure his lisp. But is a speech impediment a barrier to successChurchill, Newton, Darwin, Eubank - can you spot the odd one out If you’re talking about speech impediments then there isn’t one, they all had or have one. But in case of former boxing world champion Chris Eubank, not for much longer.
He is spending £30,000 on getting his teeth fixed and hopes it will cure his pronounced lisp. “Before long nobody will be able to accuse me of having a lisp,” he says.
For a man who goes to great lengths to stand out from the crowd - note his penchant for tweeds, monocles and seven-tonne articulated lorries - it seems a strange move. After all, his lisp is one of the things he is best known for.
But his expensive dental work suggests he is still conscious of it at the age of 42. And judging by the bad puns in the papers’ coverage of the news, he has good reason. So how do you deal with a speech impediment
We will never really know with Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton, but we do know their stutters certainly didn’t hold them back professionally. The same can be said of Winston Churchill, he defined history with his words and actions - not his stammer.
Jonathan Ross famously cannot pronounce his Rs, a phonetic difficulty that is technically known as rhotacism. It hasn’t affected his multi-million pound career as a chat-show host and presenter, but it’s definitely one of the things that defines him in the public eye.
For James Alexander Gordon it was case of tackling it head on and overcoming it. As a child he suffered from slurred speech, a condition known as dysarthria, but it didn’t stop wanting to be a radio presenter.
‘Sobbing’
He has been the voice of the football results on BBC radio for over three decades, and his voice is so distinctive students in Sweden use it to practice their inflection.
“Speech therapists didn’t even exist back then but I had two strong-willed parents who drove me on,” he says.
"I loved language and sounds from an early age and was encouraged to read and speak all the time. This love meant overcoming my impediment was a challenge, but never horrid or a chore.
SPEECH PROBLEMS
- Apraxia - Unable to consistently and correctly say what you mean
- Cluttering - Repeating syllables or phrases multiple times
- Dysprosody - Changes in the intensity, rhythm, cadence and intonation of words
- Rhotacism - Difficulty pronouncing Rs
- Selective Mutism - Unable to speak in certain situations
Source: Speech Disorder
"I just kept at it and it took a combination of the mental and physical to succeed. Because of the support of my family I never thought I wouldn’t get rid of my slurred speech, it didn’t enter my head.
“The first time I read the news on BBC radio my parents were listening at home. My father disappeared from the room and my mother found him sobbing in their bedroom. He said ‘the wee bugger has done it’. He was proud and I’m proud of what I’ve overcome and achieved.”
Specialists are quick to point out there is a wide array of speech impediments and communication disabilities, and like any spectrum some are more severe than others.
The causes are also varied and complex. Some people are born with them, while others acquire them because of anything from a stroke to acute shyness. In some cases specialists simply don’t understand why they happen.
‘Comfort zones’
But everyday, millions of people in the UK are coping with speech impediments which impact on every area of their lives.
“It’s inevitable because speaking is the way we conduct relationships and a way we get across our emotions and feelings,” says Melanie Derbyshire, chief executive of the charity Speakability. “Relationships are involved in nearly everything we do.”
For some people accepting their impediment is a large part of coping with it. From there techniques and exercises can help them manage it or lessen it.
Jaik Campbell has always had a stammer and it was actually speech therapy that made him take up stand-up comedy. It’s something he says he may never have done if things had been different.
“I had speech therapy to tackle my severe stammer and it encourages you to push your comfort zones and speak as much as you can,” he says. “We’d go out with our teacher and have to ask strangers for directions, things like that. I just took it to the extreme.”
He explains his stutter to the audience as part of his act, but it’s not central to it. While it hasn’t hindered his career, he says some venues are wary of booking him because they are unsure what to expect. In his opinion stuttering has made him a better comedian.
“Some venues are worried I will stutter so badly I won’t be able to get much out of my mouth,” he says.
“But I have coping strategies, like learning my material word for word. I think that makes me better at what I do because I know my act inside out. I’ve seen comedians without a speech impediment try to wing it and completely bomb.”
‘Exhausting’
But he feels he has also experienced discrimination. He’s been turned down for lots of jobs and was even asked if he was cold and needed the heating turned up in one interview because of his stammering.
He says talking about speech impediments is important, as once people understand a lot of the pressure is off the person who has it and who they are talking to.
However, for many people their speech impediment is always on their mind and influences nearly everything they do.
Gail Thretton suffers from cluttering, when syllables or phrases are repeated multiple times literally leaving a person’s speech cluttered with words
“The reality is my speech problems are on my mind all the time and I adapt my behaviour constantly and avoid situations,” she says.
"I try to explain my problem to people, but it’s just exhausting doing that all of the time. If I’m not having a good day I just don’t go out so I don’t have to mix with strangers.
“I can laugh at my problem and see the funny side of it, but sometimes I just don’t want to. It’s not such a giggle if you live with it day and night.”
Maybe in the case of Eubank, who on occasion has played along with the media’s jokes about his lisp, he’s had enough of people laughing at him and not with him.
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