Americans Must Stop Perpetuating Ableist Stereotypes
Biden’s stutter was widely accepted as a mark of cognitive ability. This is an inaccurate assumption.
By Tory Lysik
Illustration by Tory Lysik
I grew up with a stutter, and over three million Americans and 79 million people worldwide have one too.
Former President Joe Biden handed over power to President Donald Trump yesterday, his legacy partly characterized by the amount of time it took him to drop out of the 2024 race after doubts were raised about his fitness for office. Whether or not he was fit to run, assumptions of Biden’s condition have been riddled with misinformation about speech impediments and merciless insensitivity toward those who stutter. My relationship with my grandfather, who also had a stutter, exemplifies the misplaced conclusion that those with speech impediments are simply incapable.
When I was a preschooler my grandfather was diagnosed with dementia. My first memories of him are from when I was 4 or 5 years old. He would try to call my name from across the room but could not find the words so he said “come here, Maddie ” instead. Maddie was the dog family adopted around that time, and she was almost always by my side. When he couldn’t remember my name, hers seemed to stick in his brain a little easier. I quickly learned that when he said her name, he usually meant me.
As he got older and his dementia progressed, so did his speech issues, among other things. But for a while we shared a unique understanding of one another. Even though it was for very different reasons and we were in very different places in life, we both had a stutter.
When I was teased for my stutter in school, I tried to ignore it as much as possible. It was far less prominent when I was with close friends or with family—when I was comfortable. My stutter only truly bothered me when my less amiable friends visited my house. When they heard my grandpa talk they would make jokes about his speech, or his confusion over me and the dog.
I knew there was a difference between why I had a stutter and why my grandpa did. But I also knew that the mean names like “twitch” or “dummy” that kids called me were not representative of the truth, because they sure were not true about my grandfather.
By the time I felt like I had my stutter mostly under control—barely noticeable—my grandfather’s condition had worsened significantly. He passed away a few months after my twelfth birthday.
My stutter is still here as an adult— especially when I am public speaking or in job interviews. Some people grow out of their stutter— about 75% of all children with one— but for that 25% I fall into, we have it our entire lives.
Stuttering is a misunderstood difference in how some people communicate. It can be due to cognitive decline, but it also can be caused by a lot of factors, or nothing at all.
What we do know is it can often be exacerbated during public speaking or in stressful situations. There are three different types of stutters that are diagnosed: developmental stuttering, neurogenic stuttering, and psychogenic stuttering. Each of these come in their own form and speech patterns, but are all under the umbrella of “stutter.” We know that problems with how words are said by someone with a stutter are not related to their cognitive abilities, because speech and language are two different things.
Having a stutter is so much more than your speech pattern. You can have word swapping, which is when a person accidentally uses a synonym or similar word than the one they actually meant, usually when it is in the middle of a sentence. Biden, for example, in his farewell speech on Wednesday evening said “days” instead of “decades” when quoting Dwight D Eisenhower, but corrected himself. There’s also mispronunciation, stammering, mid-word pauses, blocking, or word repetition. Things like consonants and plosives can also be difficult for people who have a stutter. Lesser known elements of stuttering include nonverbal tics like twitching, trembling, unusual movements, or muscle spasms in your face and upper body. It can also be linked to short term memory issues that don’t necessarily equate to cognitive decline—hence the number of times Biden has said the wrong name or term.
It is not preventable, and there is no way to get rid of it completely or “cure” it. The best a person can do is put their best foot forward and try to minimize the impacts it has on their life.
Similar to some of my earliest memories of having a stutter, Biden has reflected on a teacher who made fun of him in early elementary school because of his stutter. I remember a specific teacher who made fun of my stutter around the same age. A doctor did not diagnose my stutter as a “cognitive decline” then, and neither me nor Joe Biden have been (in his case, publicly) diagnosed that way now.
In high school, Biden was bullied with nicknames like “Mr. Bu-bu-bu-Biden” and “Dash”—not because of his baseball and football athletic abilities, but because of his stutter—which made it sound like he was speaking in morse code.
It is scientifically proven that children with communication disorders like a stutter are more likely to experience bullying, and even more likely to experience long term low self esteem issues because of it.
A study in the Journal of Communicative Disorders concluded that “People who stutter experience discrimination and social devaluation, and they anticipate future stigmatizing experiences. Both of these types of stigma, enacted and felt, are associated with reduced mental health in adults who stutter.”
Lower levels of acceptance, negative reactions from the outside world and higher levels of questioning of people who stutter cognitive abilities leads to them internalizing and devaluing themselves.
“I can think of nothing else that has ever stripped me of my dignity as quickly and as profoundly and as thoroughly as when I stuttered in grade school,” Biden said during a speech to the American Institute for Stuttering in 2008. “We are thought to be slow-witted…. we are thought to have serious emotional problems.”
Decades after speaking at the American Institute for Stuttering, Biden gave a speech at the school he grew up going to. Amongst bills passed, international human rights fought for and many other feats, he maintains that giving a speech at his alma mater where he was bullied is one of his greatest accomplishments. I understand his satisfaction wholeheartedly. In this full circle moment he was finally able to feel like he was worth being there.
Going forward, it is important that we promote anti-discriminatory rhetoric and work to understand the distinction between a speech impediment and cognitive decline. Importantly, the social devaluation felt by the person with the stutter starts not within themself, but because of being treated negatively by the society around them.
Additionally, a link between cognitive function and a stutter can only be diagnosed by a doctor. Otherwise there really is no correlation between the two things. In Biden’s case, the world came to a conclusion based on a faulty assumption.
Journalists have a duty to minimize harm and stay true to both objectivity and accuracy. Going forward, if we have to mention a politician’s stutter, we have a parallel duty to provide the correct context around it.
Biden’s stutter was never a partisan issue, and he was not given the context and understanding he deserved in mainstream media. We do not know if his stutter was a result of declining cognitive function, but we do know that, like many Americans who witnessed blatantly discriminatory remarks toward the President, it’s something he has struggled with his entire life. We all deserved to be represented better and to have a voice amidst this sea of commentary and criticism.
Tory Lysik is a journalist based in New York City. You can find more of Tory’s work at tlysik.com.