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From: Rosemarie
Date: 21 Oct 2010
Time: 15:57:54 -0500
Remote Name: 86.141.191.111
Hi Katie, We don’t know for sure whether unnecessary ‘help’ can interfere with a natural process and it would be unethical to devise a research study to test this. So my statement reflects the position I take on this, which is along the lines of ‘if it’s not broken don’t fix it’. It’s a grey area where knowledge and beliefs interact and I believe that children should be allowed to develop at their own rate within a supportive and loving environment and that interfering with this in order to satisfy some adult notion of what is ‘best for the child’ can lead to frustration and sometimes the pathologizing of a natural process. I’m not saying that stuttering is part of the normal development of speaking because we know that only around 5% of children show stutter like behaviours to a sufficient extent for them to cause concern. It is the process of passing through a period of transient stuttering that some children seem to be able to take in their stride. When the stuttering persists for longer then of course we want to help children learn to manage their stuttering so that they can speak freely and, whenever possible, without stuttering. If a particular child, close to onset of stuttering, stutters less when he or she is sleeping well, not too busy rushing about, when conversations are taken at a more leisurely pace etc then these types of environmental (indirect) adjustments may have a role for a short period of time. That is, while the child’s fluency seems particularly vulnerable to these potential pressures. If natural recovery occurs that’s great but if not then a more direct treatment is indicated. I would not recommend waiting for natural recovery for so long that our window of opportunity for effective direct intervention is missed. With best wishes.