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From: Peter Reitzes
Date: 03 Oct 2008
Time: 11:12:39 -0500
Remote Name: 165.155.192.72
Tara, thanks for writing. I agree that keeping students “involved” is very important. To keep students involved I use a range of activities from talking about stuttering, learning about stuttering, meeting other children and people who stutter, and of course, by working on identifying and modifying speech. I don’t recall any speech therapy from when I was a child. I do have a speech progress report from a school clinician who “claims” I received indirect therapy when I was young, but I have significant doubts that this ever occurred. I had pretty significant learning disabilities growing up and speech therapy was a very minor consideration. And I quickly became a covert stutterer, so my parents thought I had just outgrown the stuttering because I did such a good job of hiding it. Sure, I do use some of the speaking strategy stuff I learned in my own speech therapy as an adult, but even more important, I try and recall the warmth and supportive nature of my therapist. My therapist listened and I felt comfortable talking. In retrospect, it wasn’t about the speech tools or specific activities, it was about working with someone who knew when to push and knew when to back off. It was about being at a “rock bottom” place with my stuttering and having the good luck to find an SLP who was invested in me and who opened my eyes to many new ways of thinking and feeling about stuttering.