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From: Rebecca S.
Date: 08 Oct 2008
Time: 14:02:43 -0500
Remote Name: 157.182.224.114
Hello! I am a first semester graduate student at West Virginia University. I am originally from southern New York, though. Joe Klein mentioned that his client did not want to read for class because she thought she sounded like a teacher. Klein comments that the client sounded like him when she read. As a new and upcoming clinician, I understand and completely agree that a client and clinician need to establish a strong relationship. After reading the article and the part about how the client was reading like her clinician a question came to mind. The other day I was purposely stuttering to my client who is 5 years old, and I was having him correct my disfluent speech. As stated, I am from New York and I am now in West Virginia. My client corrected my speech, but also used my accent when he did so. In essence, my client sounded like me, as well! He also questioned me why I “sounded different”. My question to Joe Klein is, when do you draw the line of allowing your client to sound like you? You stated your client read like you and now my client is picking up my accent. I can try to reduce my accent, but where do I draw the line of allowing my client to say words with an accent similar to mine? I understand this wasn’t the main focus of your article, but I am very curious to know since it seems you were in a similar situation! How do we prevent our clients from sounding too much like us, but yet aiding them in being more fluent?