Seven Principles of Stuttering Therapy

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Re: Acceptance

From: Charlie Healey
Date: 16 Oct 2007
Time: 10:56:13 -0500
Remote Name: 129.93.99.57

Comments

Kara: Acceptance of stuttering is something that takes a long time to develop and in some cases, it never seems to happen. But, because it is so important to improving stuttering, it is a principle of therapy that I think is very important. I didn't go into detail about how to accomplish any of my principles of therapy but listed some conceptual things that acceptance involves. Maybe that will be my article for next year's conference! In general, helping a person who stutters accept stuttering means that you work with them on being open about it with themselves and others. It also means being able to stutter openly and not have the fear or embarrassment that goes along with it. This can be accomplished through the use of voluntary stuttering and disclosure...two popular desensitization techniques that have been around for a long time. Acceptance also means that the person is not striving for perfect fluency and they accept that they will tolerate some stuttering. It's my perspective that the goal of therapy is to help the person who stutters to learn how to stutter in an easier way, with less tension, effort, struggle, anticipation, fear, etc. Use of techniques can reduce those things but they don't always work so that's why you have to take a multidimensional approach to change thoughts, feelings, behaviors and reactions. Thus, acceptance of stuttering is a process that takes place by working on a number of goals in therapy through a variety of activities.


Last changed: 10/22/07