Stammering, which constitutes a major trauma among all age groups, has again come to the spotlight this week ahead of the World Stammering Day to be celebrated on Monday, October 22.

Educative activities and sensitisation on how to prevent or live with the trauma will be held across five schools in Douala between October 17 and 22. Free consultations for all stammering people will also hold on Friday, Saturday and Monday at the headquarters of the Cameroon Association of Voice, Speech and Stammering (AVOPABEC) in Akwa and the District Hospital in Deido. The activities will be centred on the slogan "A voice and things to say".

Globally, one out of a hundred people stammers. As much as three in a hundred is a stammerer in Cameroon, according to President of AVOPABEC, Jacob Soh. To reduce this scourge, the association hopes to consult 500 persons this year, having consulted 230 last year in collaboration with speech therapists and other health specialists.

Challenges hampering progress include the existence of few specialists and little awareness. Experts say parents and teachers need orientation. Any parent who is observant will notice a child's behaviour from an embryonic stage. Many parents instead go to the class teacher who is himself ignorant. In trying to teach the child how to speak, the teacher instead frightens the child pushing him to stutter the more. Some parents will turn to traditional practitioners who administer concoctions.

Since 2000, 70 per cent of stammering people in the country have been medically helped to speak correctly while 30 per cent of the cases have been reduced.

Stammering, which is speech difficulty manifested through hesitation, blockage and repetition or addition of sounds, syllables or words, is said to be caused by difficult birth, divorce between parents, psychological trauma, lateness in speech, tense family climate and suffering.