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From: tim.mackesey@stuttering-specialist.com
Date: 16 Oct 2010
Time: 05:10:07 -0500
Remote Name: 72.152.236.226
Allyson, let's look at ways to utilize voluntary stuttering. With a teen/adult you explain the purpose of it. With young children it is a playful exercise. I use the Chinese finger traps and a sock in a drawer to experientially teach going from stuck to relaxation. Then I teach that the lips, tongue and voice get stuck and we stop and 'fix words' that are stuck. The kids might touch their mom's larynx or lips and see them fix words. Van Riper and Dean Williams were big on feeling, fixing, and de-personalizing.. This pseudo stuttering has no stigma attached when taught that way to young children. THEY GET THE METAPHOR, too. Experiential is the fastest way to teach young kids. You put a child on a balance beam and spot him. You do not give him a bunch of verbal directions. Many turtle and snail talk programs over teach complicated speech targets but often the children cannot do the essential STOP MY STUTTERS AS THEY OCCUR. I have found that experimenting with stuck words via pseudo stuttering is one powerful tool. My F.A.S.T. fluency program produces pre-k children who self-correct (aka pull-out) mid stutter! The pretend bumpy words teach the muscle memory to stop stutters as they occur. Allyson, YES I wish someone would have showed Timmy how to fake bumpy words and explain that is how we stop them.