The Prof Is In

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Getting on with it!

From: Dick Mallard
Date: 01 Oct 2010
Time: 12:13:29 -0500
Remote Name: 70.115.247.185

Comments

Tim, your post should be motivation for all of us professionals to become as accountable as possible. Having stuttered for as many of my 68 years as I can remember and being a specialist in stuttering for all of my professional career, I have experienced enough on both sides of the clinical table to form some fairly strong opinions. It has been my good fortune to have had therapy following a Van Riper approach in which I learned to control my stuttering. In addition, I was trained in Precision Fluency Shaping and I have treated about 150 clients using various schedules of therapy. For the past 20 years or so I have been working with children and their families using procedures I learned from Lena Rustin and her staff at the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children in London. Given all this clinical experience, I am here to tell you that I became the most accountable to my clients when I approached their treatment from a problem solving approach. Just because a person stutters does not mean that is the problem they wish to solve or even need to solve. When I started listening to the people with the problem (children especially) and began developing problem solving strategies around their issues (instead of me telling them what they needed), then my "success rate" and overall personal satisfaction improved greatly. We don't know what causes this problem and we don't know how to cure it. But, we can take the time to ask questions, listen to what is being said, explore overall communication issues, and try to understand the communication environment in order to develop the most appropriate treatment approach. I believe that approaching stuttering as a problem that needs to be solved instead of a disorder that needs to be treated is the most accountable, efficient way to proceed. Thanks for your post. Good luck to you!


Last changed: 10/23/10