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From: Michael Retzinger
Date: 05 Oct 2008
Time: 14:52:51 -0500
Remote Name: 76.199.144.91
Cindy - You ask a great question! I know that parents of children who stutter are their child's best hope, and your seeking education regarding what to do is excellent! I am going to offer you some suggestions - as well as my reasoning - behind the suggestions. I apologize if my response is lengthy - I hope this is alright by you! No doubt, Stuttering is a complex disorder. In my personal and professional experiences, stuttering is often initially diagnosed by its disfluency characteristics, and can often develop into a more severe type of stuttering. I have found that the frequency - as well as the severity levels - of stuttering can/will fluctuate greatly over time. I believe there are lots of reasons for this. Regarding your question about what "particular tool to practice at any given time" -- I always suggest to parents that they pursue educating themselves at a deeper level to become active decision makers in their child's therapy...To become their child's best therapist! As a professional, I am very goal oriented. I recognize that the goals of stopping, controlling or managing stuttering are much different than the goal of talking. I am wondering - What are your goals for your child? In my professional practice, I share the following information for parents I have the privilege of working with -- The National Stuttering Association (NSA) is the largest self help group for people who stutter in the world. The NSA has a publication entitled "Letting Go" which can be an excellent resource for PWS, Parents of Children Who Stutter, and Professionals. In the late 90's, there were a number of articles published in "Letting Go" authored by Dr. William Perkins, recipient of the Distinguished Emeritus Award at the University of Southern California for his 50 years of Stuttering Research, as well as receiving the prestigious Honors of the American Speech and Hearing Association. He is - by many - regarded to be one of the past GIANTS in the field of stuttering. He is one of the original "Specialists in Stuttering" who strongly - ferociously- argued for fluency technique based therapy. Anyways - In my work with parents of CWS, I assign parents to read a lot of information from "both sides of the coin" including the articles by Perkins that have been published in "Letting Go", such as "Why Stuttering Hasn't Been Solved", "An Odyssey", "Do Fluency Controls Ever Promote Automatic Fluency?", and "Declaring War On Fluency" to assist them in making educated decisions regarding therapy for their child. Some of the thought provoking and discussion idea's parents have brought to me after reading these articles by Perkins's are generated by statements from Perkins in these articles such as "I (Perkins) assumed, however, that if we could keep our people fluent long enough, eventually their fluency skills would become habitual. Not once did that ever happen." Another quote is this: "My (Perkins) declaration of war on fluency points to a conclusion the experts choose to ignore -- they don't have a clue about what causes stuttering." The blame for failed therapy "lay in the professional failure to recognize that fluency is not the proper objective of therapy". "I (Perkins) discovered that the neural mechanisms of naturally fluent speech production cannot be brought under voluntary control no matter how long you try." And finally (Whew!!) "Voluntary controlled fluency is the wrong scientific objective, to say nothing of the wrong treatment objective. Indeed, the very existence of self-help groups speak to the failure of professional therapy to address the needs of those who stutter, which is not about making speech acceptable to listeners. It's about coping with the feelings that create stuttering and understanding how they offer a path to full recovery." I humbly suggest considering Deepening your education and understanding of the disorder. Have the therapist your working with get these NSA articles for you to read. Know what your goals are for the therapy your child is engaged in. Dr. Richard Curlee once told me that - regarding therapy for those who stutter - "One Shoe Does Not Fit All..." My suggestion for you is this - Find out as much about the shoes - all of them - that you can. Try the shoes on yourself...wear'em for a while before you decide to buy the shoes for your child. He will wear them for a long time, and poorly fit shoes can cause tremendous problems. As you wear them, you will know if your child will find the shoes comfortable... Thanks for letting me respond!