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From: Dick Mallard
Date: 05 Oct 2009
Time: 21:19:35 -0500
Remote Name: 70.115.245.165
Kristen, thanks for writing. I love your question! One thing I have learned over the years is that people want to know what to do to help. Don't make the assumption that teachers are too busy or they have too many children to be a key player with a child who stutters. Since returning to the school setting, I have yet to have a teacher not be appreciative for knowing specifically what they can do. But, you are correct--it has to be easy for them to accomplish and they need to understand why their role is so important. First, I don't like this pull-out therapy business. Therapy should take place in the natural environment as much as possible. So, here is what to do. I have the teacher focus on only two things, eye contact and easy stuttering. First is eye contact. The child and teacher meet with me together and I have the child practice voluntary stuttering keeping eye contact. If the child's stuttering gets real and eye contact is kept, great--even better! The teacher and the child work up a little signal (see the article) that reminds the child to keep eye contact when talking with her. Whenever the child is talking to the teacher at the desk or other places, the teacher signals and they child keeps eye contact. The teacher winks or praises in some pre-determined way. This is their little secret! I do the same with voluntary stuttering. After the child can keep eye contact, we move to voluntary stuttering with eye contact. The blocks are easy and on purpose. The teacher reinforces that behavior as well. I am here to tell you when that happens in the classroom, you, the speech pathologist, become a monitor and coach but the teacher and child are doing the "work." Everyone is pleased because the child is confident because he is getting reinforced daily, the teacher feels empowered, and you get the credit! I deflect all credit to the child and teacher--seriously. The article goes into a little more detail with the procedures. Here is the kicker. I am responsible for all the children who stutter in the school district and I don't see one child for "therapy." I work with the teacher and parents and most of "my kids" are dimissed and/or on monitoring. Do I like this or what? Thanks again for writing.