[ Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Charlie Healey
Date: 14 Oct 2008
Time: 20:01:08 -0500
Remote Name: 76.84.69.211
The advice against using of the SpeechEasy for children under 15 comes from comments made by one of my colleagues in the area of stuttering, Dr. Larry Molt at Auburn University. He has studied the role of this device on the maturation of the hearing mechanism and concludes that it might be harmful to the developing auditory system. The other issue is that most children under 15 don't have the understanding about what it takes to achieve fluency without the device and be able to mirror what the device does behaviorally as opposed to what the device does on it's own. I also don't think that children care about wearing a device that calls attention to themselves. Adults are not as sensitive about those types of things. Finally, a few other professionals have reported that the device doesn't seem to work on a long term basis for children.