Parents and Children Who Stutter: The pleasures and pains of working together

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I love the questions at the end!! Very inviting!

From: Scott Palasik
Date: 07 Oct 2010
Time: 10:24:54 -0500
Remote Name: 131.95.172.211

Comments

Rosemarie, HI! I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your thorough and yet very easy and inviting article. I enjoyed how you explained some of the positives to the LP and some of the potential challenges (I haven't heard many people do that, it is good to see the openness and flexibility to see that there isn't one answer, very nice!). I also enjoyed how you asked questioned at the end of your paper, that is very inviting for people to comment and add their ideas and experiences. Parents and family (brothers, sisters, grandparents, etc) are vital to the success of a stuttering child. We (as therapist) only see the child a few hours a week (if we are lucky) while they spend the remainder with parents, friends, and family. Getting all people on the same page is challenging. I wanted to add that something I always try and do (for kids, adolescents, and adults) is instill the concept of "being your own advocate." We try and teach clients (of all ages) that: I stutter, I will stutter, and I'm letting you know so that WE (could be a friend, a teacher) are on the same page. Advertising really. This empowers the client to possibly face some of the "pains" (fears and cognitive and emotional aspects) connected with stuttering. To face fears (and anxiety) can lead clients (and parents) to the road of acceptance. Another approach I am teaching my students is connecting "values" with living life. Values like: "I value being a good brother", "I value being nice." These are values that people can always strive for, something they can do, rather than seeing values as things or certain people like: money, family (there is no movement toward those things with creating it as a sentence. This is a theory based in contextual psychology that I've been starting to incorporate into fluency therapy and will be spending time developing for the next several years. However so far we have seen great results in the few clients AND families (mostly early adolescents and adults) that we have used it with. However, my point of writing was just to say how much I enjoyed your honest and developed article. Thank you so much for writing it and have a great day! Scott


Last changed: 10/07/10