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From: Tricia Zebrowski
Date: 05 Oct 2011
Time: 15:41:02 -0500
Remote Name: 97.91.105.83
I have heard from a number of PWS that the disfluency characteristic they would most like to change is sound prolongation (with or without airflow and/or voicing). Many have noted that this type of disfluency feels like a "blockage" and this inability to move forward in speech causes them a great deal of discomfort and anxiety (some report a feeling of panic). Naturally, they experience a strong physiological reaction that seems to be best described as "fight or flight", perhaps what we (slps) see as "struggle". I think that voluntary stuttering or replicating the behavior of stutering purposefully is both desensitizing and increases behavioral awareness. It helps the individual to feel what they are doing when they stutter in a context that is relatively devoid of negative emotion and physiological reactivity. Paying attention to what you do so that you know when and how you might change it is an old theme in stuttering therapy (thanks to Wendell Johnson and Dean Williams), and continues to hold true in attempts to change any behavior. As a side note, even if the PWS wants to focus on learning ways to produce controlled and ultimately automatic fluency, I typically introduce purposeful stuttering as a method for decreasing emotionality in the moment of stuttering and for helping the person to pay attention to what he does during speech, both fluent and stuttered. That being said, I don't teach stuttering modification unless the person wants to focus on changing those moments once he experiences a level of awareness and reduced arousal.