800 Posts from r/stutter — An Interactive Story

800

posts from r/stutter

Python·NLP·RoBERTa·WordCloud·NetworkX

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1%

of the global population stutters

That is roughly equivalent to —

Population of Germany

But is that it?

NIH

A study by the National Library of Medicine, USA found — National Institutes of Health · USA

22%

OF ADULTS WHO STUTTER SUFFER FROM ANXIETY THAT MEETS THE CRITERIA FOR A CLINICAL DIAGNOSIS.

How?

I processed the 800 posts by analyzing the sentiment of every post title using RoBERTa. Each post was categorized as either Positive or Negative — and I then isolated the "Negative" group to identify which words appeared most often.

The result is a word cloud, highlighting what appear to be the frequently occurring emotional stressors. Word size reflects frequency within the subset.

See the results

Sentiment Wordclouds · Post Titles

Negative

Positive

1/4

Of negative posts were about anxiety

0

instances of anxiety-related word mentions

Negative Sentiment Word Co-Occurrence Network

Click a tag below to highlight a cluster

Reddit is unique because its community-led structure allows individuals to find a safe space, effectively reducing the isolation that often fuels social anxiety.

Hence, building a similar network graph for positive posts might point at a community that acknowledges that stuttering isn't just about speech; it's about the isolation and anxiety that come with it.

Positive Sentiment · Co-Occurrence Network

Click a tag below to highlight a cluster

Conclusion

Analyzing 800+ r/stutter posts confirms that the psychological barriers of stuttering, while not universal, are a deeply resonant reality for many.
While Wordclouds and Network Graphs have limitations, they are uniquely powerful at mapping the multi-layered nature of psychological burden in its entirety.
Social media "chatter" can often be a vital window into under-represented struggles that other analyses might miss.
The goal isn't to provide a final answer, but to spark a dialogue. When it comes to under-represented issues like a speech impediment, an inconclusive conversation might just be better than one that never took place.

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