Delco Stuttering Community Learns Leadership Lessons In Ireland

HAVERTOWN, PA — About 1 percent of the population in the United States are people who stutter.

While pop culture has often painted stuttering as a comical speech disorder, coping with the neurological difference can weigh on the community.

But a group of Havertown residents, along with a few others from the Philadelphia region, are aiming to change that and took steps to do so via a leadership exchange overseas.

The Nolan Stuttering Foundation, which was founded during the COVID-19 pandemic by Brian Nolan, a person who stutters, and speech language pathologist Joseph Donaher, led the exchange to Clonakilty in County Cork, Ireland.

More than a dozen young people from the region and one from Virginia, who ranged from 18 to 40 years old, spent more than a week immersing themselves in Irish culture with fellow people who stutter. Participants also partook in leadership training and a celebrated stuttering pride.

Among the local participants were Haverford Township Seventh Ward Commissioner Conor Quinn, who is a person who stutters, and Audrey Flood, Haverford High School class of 2024, another person who stutters.

"I was excited to meet Irish leaders and talk about stuttering, Flood, 19, told Patch. "I like to advocate for stuttering, and my family has Irish roots."

Quinn, 40, said the experience left him feeling better than he did after spending time with therapists.

"I learned more from [the exchange participants] than any of the therapists I've seen," he said.

The group of people who stutter headed to Ireland for the exchange because of Ireland's history.

"It's a unique history of resilience, of courage, of standing up for what you think is right," Donaher, who is the Research Program Director with the Department of Speech-Language Pathology and the Center for Childhood Communication at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said.

There, participants met with leader such as Mayor of Cork City Ian Doyle, 10-time All-Ireland Football Champion Juliet Murphy, and singer Emily Magner Hurley.

"It was an inspiring trip," Quinn said. "I think we were all sad to see it end. There were nerve, we were anxious. But I think we call came back better than we were before."

"It's exciting that more people will hear about [the stuttering community] and that these trips will keep happening," Flood said.

In 2026, the foundation will host visitors from Ireland for another exchange, then in 2027, locals will again head to Ireland for a third exchange.

"Everywhere we went, I thought everyone was so nice," Quinn said.

The participants came back as close friends who share a new bond among each other.

Stuttering, Quinn said, is a speech disorder that is still laughed at, but increasing awareness has led to more understanding and acceptance.

Flood said a lot of pop culture representations of stuttering portrays the community in a negative light, often portraying people who stutter as nervous, stupid, or unsure of themselves.

"It's really important for me to talk about it and to kind of reframe that," she said.

Donaher referenced President Joe Biden's stutter and it being mocked during his 2024 presidential campaign.

"For the first time in the last race, I heard the media stand up for people who stutter," he said. "You can't say someone is intellectually slow because they stutter."

People who stutter sometimes encounter others who attempt to finished their words or phrases for them. While their intentions are good, doing so is not helpful for the person who is stuttering.

"I feel like most people come in with good intentions, and just want to help," Flood said. "If I notice that someone is trying to finish words for me, I'll just keep talking to cue them that I don't need their help."

Flood said if that doesn't work, she will explain stuttering to them and that more time is needed for her to finish her sentences.

"In the long run, [finishing a person who stutters' words] makes it 10 times worse," Donaher said.

He called Flood the "poster child" of people who stutter telling others what they should and shouldn't do when interacting with the community.

"When Audrey's telling someone, 'wait, let me finish,' or Conor says to someone, 'I'm a person who stutters, you'll have to wait,' that's really telling that person for the next person who stutters they run into," Donaher said.

Stuttering is a neurological speech condition that's as inheritable as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Sixty-six percent of people who stutter have someone in their family who also stutters.

In the past, clinical treatment sought to eliminate stuttering from people.

"That's a great idea, but the issue is there is no technique works 100 percent," Donaher said. "Those old techniques made people seem even more different."

Quinn said a therapist he worked with in his youth told him to think before he spoke and to take his time.

"I realize now that was the worst thing you can say," he said.

But now, thanks to the awareness of the neurodivergent community, clinicians, speech language pathologists, and speech therapists will often focus on making speaking easier for people who stutter.

Donaher said most clinicians are somewhere between eliminating stutters and giving people who stutter tools to make communicating less stressful for them.

As for Flood, she said she worked with a speech language pathologist in a public setting, but found — due to their high number of people who have other speech disorders — that stuttering therapy was not as robust as she hoped.

She got onboard with the Nolan Foundation and found more success in managing her stutter.

Donaher said speech language pathologists, generally, are not that well-versed in stuttering.

"Stuttering is one of the least comfortable issues for them to work with," he said. "They feel the least competent to work with people who stutter."

He attributes that to less than half of speech language graduate programs featuring courses on stuttering.

Quinn, being a local public figure, said he has found opening remarks to the Haverford Township Board of Commissioners with a joke eases any possible tension. But that doesn't serve as a panacea to stutter-induced anxiety.

"Sometimes you plan out your day for when you have to talk," he said.

Flood echoed Quinn's comment, saying she also tends to think ahead and plan out what she wants to say.

"I also feel like when I'm in the moment of stuttering, I'm thinking about what am I doing right now, and what is the person I'm speaking to doing," she said. "Are they confused? Are they paying attention?"

But in those moments, she recalls something Donaher tells people who stutter: "The way you react to your stuttering shapes the way someone else acts to it."

"So if I'm acting like it's fine, I just keep talking, then usually the other person reciprocates that and the rest of the conversation keeps going," she said.

Another important takeaway from their journey to Ireland was not apologizing for stuttering.

"Why do we have to say sorry about it," Quinn said. "That's one thing I will never say, because I don't have to be sorry."

Learn more about the Nolan Stuttering Foundation online here. The website features resources for members of the stuttering community, information about the Irish exchange, and the Stuttering Springboard podcast, which looks deeply into critical transition periods in the lives of young people who stutter.