You don't have to read out loud or give presentations in school.

You don't have to read out loud or give presentations in school. Stuttering is a disability. We may not like thinking of it that way, but it clearly is. As such, in the United States at least, public schools are REQUIRED BY FEDERAL LAW to provide you with help for your disability. This is called an Individual Education Plan often shortened to IEP. This is a totally normal part of school and a lot more kids have IEPs than you might realize. Kids with ADHD, kids with dyslexia, kids with anxiety, kids with more obvious special needs like being in a wheelchair or having serious mental or physical problems. You might not even know you have one, but if you go to speech therapy at school, you do. There are two basic parts to an IEP - deciding on what extra services the student gets (like seeing a speech therapist a couple times a week) and making a plan with the school about "accommodations" for the student. Accommodations are things that the school agrees to change about how they teach and what they expect of the student, to "accommodate" the student's special needs. For example, they might agree to let someone with really bad eyesight use an iPad to read all their assignments, so they can use a really big font. They might agree not to make the kid with leg braces run laps in gym. For people who stutter, it would be extremely reasonable to have the school agree not to ask you to read out loud in class. You could get them to agree not to require you to give presentations in front of class. You could write an essay instead, or maybe be in a group and help write the speech for the person who \*does\* give the presentation. These are all PERFECTLY REASONABLE requests that should not even require an IEP. Any reasonable teacher would just say yes...... but not all teachers are reasonable. Luckily the IEP is the law, and the schools and the teachers know it. They legally cannot go against an IEP, or they will get sued and lose 100% of the time. But also, these are EASY accommodations for the school, so they should say yes anyway. They don't have to DO anything for these. They don't have to change your class schedule, they don't have to change what assignments they give you or when they're due. This is zero work for them, and they'll chalk that up as a win, and worry more about what more annoying changes *other* kids with IEPs will ask for. **You do not need to read out loud in class.** **You do not need to give presentations in front of the class.** In college, I had a class where the professor wanted us to do presentations for a project. I literally just went up after class and explained that I stuttered, and asked if I could skip the presentation. He said yes. You can do that too. I would *hope* that most teachers would be compassionate, and realize they can just decide not to ask you to do it. If you are in public school and don't have an IEP, you 100% need one. If you go to speech therapy in school, you have an IEP. If you don't, ask your parents if you have an IEP... because you 100% should. As I said, it's the law. It's not even a gray area. I know it can be embarrassing to talk about your stutter, and it can be hard to talk to your parents. If you don't want to talk, send them an email or a text. I guarantee you, your parents want to help. They *know* school is hard for you, but they might not know what they can or should do. It may never have occurred to them to just ask the school not to require these things of you. But it's totally normal and this kind of accommodation happens ALL THE TIME. Just ask.