When actor and disability advocate Marc Winski heard former President Donald Trump mock President Joe Bidens stutter at a campaign rally earlier this month, he wasnt entirely surprised.

Im gonna bring the country t-t-t-together , Trump said, mocking Bidens recent State of the Union address at a rally in Rome, Georgia, last weekend.

It wasnt the first time Trump had poked fun at Bidens lifelong struggle with stuttering or even someones disability. During his 2016 presidential run, Trump infamously imitated Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter who has arthrogryposis , a condition that limits joint functioning. (Trump claimed that he was only pantomiming a groveling reporter with his jerking hand movements.)

So while Winski wasnt surprised at Trumps latest gaffe, he was disappointed, especially when he heard the audiences reaction.

What bothered me the most were the cheers, laughter, and applause given from the audience, Winski told HuffPost. That was appalling and showed that further education is needed. Nobody should be mocking another persons disability. Period.

Between 6 and 8 million people in the United States have some kind of language impairment, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

For Winski and many like him that plays out in stuttering , a speech disorder characterized by repetition of sounds, syllables, or words and interruptions and involuntary lengthening of speech. Mentally, those with stutters generally experience tension and negative feelings about talking, avoiding raising their hands in class or signing up for activities that would involve lots of socializing.

Because its so hard to mask, its not uncommon for those who stutter to deal with schoolyard bullies and discrimination long into adulthood.

Winski has dealt with it all, from the jokes like tuh-tuh-tuh and did you forget your name? to being openly discriminated against for jobs: It took daily practice to unlearn this shame and work to be proud to share my unique voice.

Biden, too, has spoken openly about having a stutter. While hes never received professional intervention, growing up, he practiced speaking in front of a mirror to curb it, with strong encouragement from his late mother, Catherine.

In Frontlines 2020 Trump vs. Biden documentary, Bidens sister, Valerie Biden Owens , described how Catherine came to her brothers aid when a nun at his school bullied him, calling him Mr. Buh-buh-buh Biden after hed stumbled while reading out loud in class.

As the story goes, Catherine marched her young son back to school and confronted the teacher to her face : Sister, did you make fun of my son? if you ever, ever, ever do that again, Im going to come back and Im going to knock your bonnet right off your head. Do we understand each other?

Caroline Jones, a speech-language pathologist, thinks that unlike most disabilities, people feel entitled to correct stammering because they believe its something that can easily be controlled. (Others think that if the person would just relax and calm down, theyd have no problem working their way around their words.)

Speech impairments are quite different from more overt physical disabilities in that it may appear that a stutter or other non-typical manner of speaking is something that the person could control, said Jones, whos worked for over 30 years in the field, largely in a K-12 school setting.

In the case of stuttering, its a life-long impairment and very hard to modify or overcome, she said.