Using Audacity as Visual Feedback with a Nine Year Old Boy

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Re: Complementary Treatments

From: Judy
Date: 24 Oct 2009
Time: 20:05:31 -0500
Remote Name: 74.104.112.9

Comments

Frank, Where did the 26 years go!? How have I been engaging children all that time?! Well, I guess I would say that most children want to be told what to do initially. Whether or not that is the best way to teach is up for debate. But they tend to be so used to being "spoon fed" in educational institutions, that I usually begin with the familar worksheet/card game approach simply to proved a framework for beginning discussion. Worksheets that relate to state curriculum frameworks engage parents also. But, these activities simply start the conversation. As a child talks about his interests and family, I then look for ways to make analogies between the concepts of stuttering therapy and contexts with which he is already familiar. Sports and music are frequent such topics. Many years ago, a turning point for one elementary school age girl was when I had a session that included her father who was a music teacher. The light bulb went on for this dad as we talked about easy onsets, phrasing, and variations in suprasegmental features of voicing in terms of playing an instrument. Homework was much more productive as this dad suddenly understood better how to practice "speech tools" at home not as an end in themselves, but as a process for creating a piece of music - connected speech. This gives me the opportunity to plug "The Inner Game of Tennis" and other books by this same author. There is also an ISAD article from an earlier year with this same theme. Speech tools are practiced in fun activities along a continuum of difficulty with the intention of moving beyond them to a more global sense of forward moving, more relaxed, more confident speech production. So, from highly structured tasks, we move to specific topics: baseball, boxing, leggos, Star Wars, global warming, negotiating, arts & crafts...whatever is FUN. Talking needs to be fun and what the child says needs to be made relevent. I hope this sounds like obvious common sense to you. Spend some time at a crowded shopping mall or discount toy store and listen to the adult-child interactions and you will find that some children do not receive such respect from the adults in their lives. Believe in your own creativity. :) Judy


Last changed: 10/24/09