As a child, Lydia’s life was flipped upside down because of her stutter and the medical professionals who were woefully uninformed in their knowledge of this speech impediment. Now, she’s helping to make sure others who have a stutter suffer less than she did. 

By age four, Lydia Yaiser spoke with a stutter. Although stuttering is caused by a combination of factors including genetics, language development, environment, and brain structure, one thing that does not cause a stutter is stress. 

Why stress has become a diagnosis frontrunner for everyone from the casual observer to trained professionals is unclear, but the wrongly perpetuated misconception and discrimination that results from this narrow view of stuttering is undeniable. 

The faulty assumption that anxiety (springing forth from some nefarious source) was the cause of Lydia’s stuttering ultimately transformed her life. 

Lydia Yaiser

Stuttering in School

It is estimated that stuttering affects three million Americans, yet it remains a disability that is very much misunderstood. 

While a student in the Saratoga Springs School District, a teacher isolated Lydia from other children in the classroom because of her stuttering. 

“She believed they were starting to develop a stutter from watching me speak. This is not possible. Stuttering is not contagious. The kids were merely copying my stutter because they thought it was cool and an interesting way to speak,” remembers Lydia. 

Dangerous Assumptions

Far from being harmless, the prevailing misconception that stuttering is a manifestation of nervousness perpetuates in both subtle and totally blatant forms of discrimination. As a result, someone who stutters will often feel shame when they speak and may avoid certain words, or speaking altogether. 

“The most drastic experience I have had growing up in Saratoga was with my pediatrician who was so uninformed on stuttering that I would call it pure negligence,” explained Lydia. 

When she was eight, Lydia went to the doctor for persistent cold symptoms that her mother suspected could be allergy related.

At the busy office, Lydia and her aunt were paired with a doctor they’d rarely seen before. He falsely concluded that Lydia’s symptoms “indicated extreme stress” caused by abuse. This resulted in what Lydia calls a “horrible ordeal” that lasted nearly a year and a half, during which Child Protective Services (CPS) removed Lydia from her home. 

“To put a very complicated situation into a nutshell... The destruction caused by CPS was so traumatic that I have tried to block out as much of the memories of it as possible,” Lydia said. “Only those who have been through such severe trauma understand the pain and desire to forget the events. It’s a feeling that never leaves your body. It’s perpetual trauma.” 

In the Face of Pain 

Regardless of the lifelong traumatic experiences and discrimination, Lydia persevered to become an exceptional student. While attending acting classes in Los Angeles, CA, she met two Disney Channel actors who referred her to an online high school based in Dana Point, CA that they were attending designed for high-achieving students in the entertainment industry. Lydia welcomed the change and the challenge. 

This year, Lydia received a full scholarship to Stanford’s Summer Program and studied immunology at Harvard’s Summer School. This fall, she became a Skidmore pre-med student and will also be shadowing a Saratoga Springs orthopedic surgeon.

“As an aspiring physician, I believe that no aspect of the human experience should be foreign to us or be only superficially understood. This is why, as a pre-med student, I make every effort to seek out opportunities that expand my experiences and feed my intellectual curiosity. I am fascinated by “the human experience” that we are all here together for a reason, and as a physician I will strive to make inroads ensuring everyone is represented, heard, and understood,” said Lydia.