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From: Ken St. Louis
Date: 15 Oct 2010
Time: 15:44:05 -0500
Remote Name: 157.182.15.31
Dear Peter, I can see that you want an answer. If I were your speech-language pathologist (or "clincian") and you came to see me, I would do my best to give you an answer. I would of course tell you that whatever I thought was the best approach to therapy for you was just my best opinion at the time. If you wanted to permanently eliminate your stuttering, I'd tell you that we could try to do that, but we would be risking failure. It would be like trying to permanently eliminate all spelling mistakes. Still, if I thought that you could change your stuttering by concentrating on such things as your rate (speed) of speaking, tension in your voice box, or tension in your throat and mouth, I believe we could reduce your stuttering a whole lot. Or if you didn't mind some mild stuttering but wanted to reduce the struggle in your more severe stutterings, I believe we could do that as well. In either case, you would probably find a lot of relief if we simply talked about stuttering, maybe even in a group, and taught you to sometimes just go ahead and stutter. (It turns your avoidance upside down to go ahead and do what you usually avoid doing!) What this all means is that the therapy that "works" the best is the one that helps you get what you are looking for and be able to maintain those gains. Sometimes your clinician, like any good coach, will have to explain that what you want either may not be realistic or possible. But usually, by discussing and working together with your clinician, you can get closer to the best approach then by either trying everything that comes along or doing what every other client does. Maybe this will help answer your question. Ken