1.If you read Dave McGuire's 'Beyond Stuttering', sports analogies are everywhere in the book. He actively tells people to think about speech as some kind of sports. The McGuire programme, as you may know, is very influential in improving the lives of many people with speech dysfluency. 2. There's no such thing as cure in sports or learning any skill, however people can certainly improve their craft. I don't see why speech needs to be any different. You seem to worry that by even talking about improvement, the stutterer is burdening himself/herself. If you look at the example of scores of people who've improved their speech, they appear much much happier than someone who has accepted his/her fate as someone who'd forever have the same level of fluency. It's about investing in the future and constantly improving oneself. 3. Speaking about acceptance, I'd advise people to be cautious of what it represents. It's one thing to accept your current state and be honest with people; if you try to hide your speech dysfluency, it makes the situation worse. However, it's another thing altogether to assume that you're fated to forever speak the same way. People are making speech impediment into a caste system, where once an untouchable, always an untouchable, there no way you can go up the hierarchy. Honestly, that's a pitiful way to live. And it has no scientific basis; there's no evidence that the majority of stutterers can't significantly improve their speech in the course of their life.