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

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Re: Blaming the victim

From: Ed Feuer
Date: 19 Oct 2010
Time: 10:54:25 -0500
Remote Name: 204.112.159.5

Comments

Nan, with all due respect, a toxic communication environment cannot help a child who stutters. I say that parents and others in the household must play a positive role in therapy because if they don't, they can undermine everything — and that SLPs must understand this. Support my argument? No problem. I'll give you the gold standard. I've taken down a book that has an honoured place on my shelf — one that I suspect is on your bookshelf, too. I refer you to a section entitled "Our parent counseling" on pages 418-420. I will only quote a bit here: "Unless the therapist is able to understand and to cope with these parental attitudes he can hardly hope that his counseling will have any value . . . . Our basic task in the parent counselling we do is to diminish the forces that are precipitating stuttering and to increase those that increase the child's fluency." The book is The Treatment of Stuttering by Charles Van Riper — a book whose eminent good sense rings through the decades and one I recommend to everyone reading this. Granted, Van Riper, as usual, was describing an ideal situation whose execution is highly challenging for even qualified SLPs, but the basic concept is rock solid. Now to head off potential flak, let me say that I am not an SLP, just a PWS who has been around the block a few times, actually many, many times. Cordially, Ed. edfeuer@mts.net


Last changed: 10/19/10