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October 22 was designated International Stuttering Awareness Day (ISAD) in 1998. The day is intended to raise public awareness of the millions of people – one percent of the world's population – who have the speech disorder of stuttering, also known as stammering.
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Organization
ISAD is organised by three organizations:
Activities
ISAD includes an online conference, [1] running annually from October 1 to 22 each year, targeted at people with an interest in stuttering as well as speech-language pathologists and their clients. The conferences, held every year since 1998, are all still available online.[2]
It also includes public awareness events, a media campaign, educational activities and online resources.
In an article published in the UK magazine Community Care to mark International Stuttering Awareness Day, Irina Papencheva from the Bulgarian Stuttering Association and Phil Madden from the European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities demanded a fresh start in attitudes towards stammering, saying that "everyone has the responsibility to be aware, to be sensitive in our conversations and meetings" and to remember that stuttering is "not funny".