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From: Ed Feuer
Date: 16 Oct 2009
Time: 22:44:50 -0500
Remote Name: 76.17.183.48
Some clinicians may ask themselves that question frequently, but the long-standing question is: what do they do about it? What has been known to happen, and altogether too frequently, is the following. (And it bears repeating, students, and not just because stutterers do it repeatedly.) 1. A practitioner gets a stuttering client relaxed in the clinic room, greatly reducing dysfluencies; 2. The practitioner gives the client some "technique" in the clinic room; 3. The client leaves the clinic room into the real world and falls flat on his or her face; 4. The client reports that to the clinician in the clinic room; 5. The client is told by the clinician in the clinic room, "Oh, you're just not working;" 6. The clinician collects from the bill-payer. Given the nature of stuttering, what is needed (to prevent No. 3 above) is thorough, effective, systematic, in vivo desensitization -- outside the clinic room. But if clinic room fraud happens, that's when, ideally, a call to ASHA's still non-existent dedicated ombudsman for stuttering would come into play. Or you can try your luck with ASHA's existing complaint "structures." — Ed Feuer, edfeuer@mts.net