Stuttering and Bilingualism in Children and Adults

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Differences in avoidance behavior in biliguals

From: Christina Garidis
Date: 19 Oct 2008
Time: 22:12:20 -0500
Remote Name: 68.237.201.239

Comments

Dear Dr. Humphrey, It's very interesting that the therapy transferred to the second language. I understand that this is because stuttering is a speech and not a language disorder. But there are many behavioral components that may affect the progress of the therapy, namely the covert behaviors that Manning, Van Riper and others have written about. I am interested in knowing what kind of fluency-modification techniques you used for the bilinguals; and were there any differences in avoidance behaviors in the different languages for each client? This relates to another question I have about avoidance behaviors that reinforce stuttering. Many fluent bilinguals may be comfortable in one language more than in the other, which may be due to having more self-confidence in one speaking context than another. What if a client exhibits more avoidance behavior in one language than in the other? Would this affect the overall Van Riperian or nonavoidance approach? Did this issue come up in your study or in your work in general? Thank you.


Last changed: 10/19/08