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From: Dave Williams
Date: 10 Oct 2009
Time: 14:32:55 -0500
Remote Name: 98.219.124.61
I think this is a highly significant article because it deals with such basic issues in stuttering therapy---the nature of stuttering, the analysis of therapy outcomes, and the definition and measurement of the variables that are involved in stuttering and its therapy. It has been said that science advances no faster than the accuracy of it's measuring instruments and procedures. The results of those measurements must be placed on some sort of scale which has a zero point and equal intervals, such as a ruler or a thermometer. Our task is to define the manipulable variables in stuttering and in the therapy process, and apply our 'rulers'(e.g., SSI, OASES), etc.) and thus gradually build a procedure for evaluating the outcome of stuttering therapy that will be satisfactory to all "stakeholders". Ideally, each of the stuttering and therapy variables under consideration should be objectively quantifiable, but this is likely impossible . You can quantify (count) the number of times a person stutters in five minutes of conversation, but you can't quantify objectively how much expectancy he has of stuttering. It would be enlightening to go through all the stuttering and stuttering therapy variables listed in this article and decide which ones are quantifiable and which are qualitative, and just how you would go about changing each one for the better (known as therapy). There are so many variables in stuttering and the therapy proicess (some known and some unknown), that it will probably be a cold day in Hades before a desired stuttering therapy outcome will be reliably produced on a mass scale. But who knows. Stuttering therapy, despite a zigzag course of improvement, is better than it used to be on a broad front, and therapy outcome may some day be much more predictable and controllable. In the meantime, keep watching the weather reports!