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From: Walt Manning
Date: 01 Oct 2008
Time: 17:49:14 -0500
Remote Name: 141.225.97.59
Hi Keith, Well you made smile when I saw that you enjoyed reading my comments. I know several people who stutter – sometimes easy, sometimes not so easy –who are nevertheless, extremely good communicators. And, of course, we all know more or less fluent speakers who aren’t terribly good communicators. Just check out some current politicians - but that’s another story. Charlie Healey had a paper in last year’s ISAD Conference and another this years commenting on seven principles of stuttering therapy. In a manuscript that I’ve been working on for several months I discussed four principles of successful therapeutic (or self-directed) change for individuals who stutter. We may come up with more of these later but keeping it as simple as possible is probably a good idea. At this point the principles, in order of importance, include: (1) moving toward rather than away from the problem. (2) assume responsibility for taking action, (3) restructure the cognitive view of yourself and the problem, and (4) recruit the support of others. By doing these things it is more likely that a speaker can turn stuttering into a gift. In any case, hope you enjoy this year’s Conference and it was nice hearing from you.