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From: Russ Hicks
Date: 14 Oct 2008
Time: 16:05:32 -0500
Remote Name: 70.104.19.41
Hello Lauren, Thank you for your kind words. .... The most important tip and advice I can give you is perhaps the most difficult thing you have to learn: LISTEN. Listen not only with your ears and your head, but also with your heart. Trust your instincts, and let the other person talk as long as he wants. Learn to listen between the lines. He may tell you he desperately wants to be fluent. (And I understand that!) But what he really may mean is that he is crying out for understanding, for an ability to communicate with people around him. He doesn't really need to be fluent to be able to do that, but he believes he does. You don't need to TELL him that - especially not in your first meeting with him - but you can teach him how to communicate effectively even if he stutters. Fluency and communication are fundamentally different concepts. By listening to him with everything you've got, you can SHOW him that he IS communicating with you and that you ARE listening to him. Stuttering is a WHOLE PERSON problem and to effectively help someone deal with it, you have to treat that person as a WHOLE PERSON, not as a disembodied voice box. And by LISTENING to that person with ever fibre of your being, you are relating to that WHOLE PERSON - and he will begin to trust you and enable you to become a very effective stuttering therapist. ... I wish there was an easier answer for you, Lauren, but there isn't. It's been said that God gave us one mouth and two ears for a purpose. <smile> Listening is at least twice as important as talking. .... I wish you the best in school and in your career, Lauren. I hope our paths cross some day! .... Russ