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From: Greg Snyder
Date: 10 Oct 2008
Time: 13:25:13 -0500
Remote Name: 130.74.194.27
Hi Kim. Well--to be honest, it sounds like your client is still stuttering. He's just doing a better job at hiding or suppressing overt primary stuttering moments. The notion that stuttering should be clumped into "primary" and "secondary" behaviors is one in which I simply do not subscribe. To me, stuttering is what the body does to compensate or overcome some kind of block occurring at the neural level. So whether the kid does this via repetitions or with eye-blinks is immaterial. It's still a bodily compensation attempting to help force the initiation of a speech gesture. So the client (at least in my eyes) is still very much stuttering. So what to do? Very similar approaches as before. Volitional stuttering (which will negate the need for the eye blinks and the mouth opening). Cancellations--but instead of cancelling out overt stuttering moments, you're cancelling out 'secondary' behaviors. Make healthy eye contact another specific treatment objective. ... Don't let him fool you; he is still stuttering quite a bit (especially if it's every other utterance). He's just allowed his symptoms to take another form, which will significantly impact his effective communication.