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As a stammerer, Abel Kai has faced myriads of challenges since he was young. But despite being a subject of ridicule he has never allowed his condition to determine his future.

When he started his education journey, he found himself a loner. “Many students avoided me because they thought I would infect them and make them stammer too. They also made fun of me,” he says.

Kai was, however, lucky because his mother was a teacher in the same school and would report any mistreatment by fellow pupils to her. But by the time he joined secondary school, he had already grown a thick skin.

Kai loved journalism and even went ahead to pursue it at the university despite numerous discouragements. However, he made a detour and pursued pageantry and commercial modelling. His challenge so far has been getting a job. Some modelling gigs requires him to read a script on camera, but he is locked out due to his inability to express himself eloquently. “It is so devastating because I have missed so many opportunities, yet I have the potential to do the work,” he noted.

With such obstacles, the 26-year- old has opted to venture into self-employment.

Career obstacles

A study by Australian researchers showed stuttering reduce the chances of employability and further decreases the chances of rising up the corporate ladder. The study showed 70 per cent of the interviewers who are stammerers agreed on the unlikeliness to be hired, especially on managerial position. Thirty-three per cent said stammering interfered with their job performance and 20 per cent were forced to turn down a promotion.

In another study, Dr Claire Butler of Newcastle University observed there was also tendency of employers discriminating stammerers and rejecting them because of concerns raised by customers or fellow team members. As a result, many of the stammers were appointed to “boring jobs” which were lonely and other normal people could not stick too.

Winnie Miseda, a human resource expert says it is highly likely for stuttering people to face challenges getting employment, especially jobs that involves a lot of communication. The biggest victims are stammerers who aspires to get managerial positions and those who deal directly with customers and their work involves a lot of communication.

“Most managerial positions involve a lot of verbal communication and with this, most of the companies will tend to lock them out since this is one of the roles they cannot take up so well,” she shares. She adds, “Unless the company hires another employee who will complement the stutterer, then some of the positions will most preferably be for persons who don’t stammer.”

This, however, does not mean stutterers are locked out of employment opportunities completely. According to the renowned hiring expert, stutterers can identify careers in operations, paper work or technical jobs. This will keep their communication minimal, thus reducing the stress and struggle to express themselves on work related matters.

Another dilemma, Miseda notes, is whether the stutter should inform the recruiting officer about their condition or not and at what stage should that happen. “Not many people are patient when it comes to listening. Informing the employer about the condition will prepare them psychologically on how to give the candidate adequate time to respond to interview questions,” she advises.

Miseda says a recruiting organisation should never reduce chances of a stutterer and instead should push them to focus on  individual’s abilities and strengths.

However, Jane Mutisya, human resource manager and project director at Career Management Centre Limited says there is no need to inform the hiring company if you stammer. She says as long as that is not among the requirements, then it should be a non-issue. “As a hiring official, I do not need to know about an interviewee’s condition. Let them inform me during the interview,” Mutisya said.

She notes stammering does not reflect one’s intelligence or the ability or inability to do the work they are being hired for. .

Dominic Keter, founder, Stammering Society of Kenya agrees that people who stammer are treated unfairly. “Majority of Kenya’s employers measures intelligence of a person on how fluent they can be when communicating, thus locking us,” he says.

He notes that most recruiting agents accord stutters same period of time to non-stammers thus disadvantaging them since they take longer time to respond. The association has been at the forefront in creating awareness and advocating for the rights of its members.

However, stammering has not entirely locked out stutterers from holding top offices. World most powerful leader, US president Joe Biden is a rehabilitated stammer whom time to time has openly talked about his condition. At one time, he noted how people make fun and joke about stuttering unlike other forms of disabilities, which are perceived more serious. “Stuttering is the only thing that good people think it is still okay to laugh about,” he said.

Rehabilitated stammers

Biden said stammering lowers one’s self-esteem and make those who suffer from the condition panic or become anxious. Over the years, Biden has worked hard to learn how to cope with stammering, and as a result has seen him overcome the condition.

Speech and language therapist Gladys Rotich says people who stammer have a chance of communicating normally if they start rehabilitation and treatment process early. “The treatment involves identifying the triggers causing stammering and how to mitigate them,” she shares.

However, there are several challenges in getting the much-needed rehabilitation one of them being the accessibility of the therapists and money. Rotich says Kenya has less than 20 speech and language therapists. “The education ministry has only two therapists who serve the whole country. Having enough therapists and adequate resources will help us in identifying children with stammering immediately they join schools,” she adds.

Therapy is also expensive. A session cost between Sh3,500 and Sh5,000. A client has to attend a session every week for two and a half months and in some instances, it takes longer.