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From: Ken Logan
Date: 11 Oct 2011
Time: 10:41:23 -0500
Remote Name: 128.227.139.253
Hi Katie, This is a good question, and illustrates nicely the difficulties that we sometimes have in distinguishing between "unmanaged stuttering" and "managed stuttering." Van Riper discussed managed stuttering at length under the concept of stuttering modification therapy, and the speech pattern you describe could be consistent with the stuttering management techniques he described (e.g., preparatory set) if it is being done deliberately. If so, the "disfluency" could be considered positive (i.e., an instance of managed stuttering). The notion of gentle onset (or more precisely "slow, gentle onset") is usually associated with fluency shaping approaches, where the overarching goal is to eliminate, or at least substantially reduce, stuttering breaks in speech. I've always thought that the two approaches are not really not as different as they are sometimes made out to be. In your example, we may be seeing a case of managed stuttering, but it's tough to tell whether it is that or unmanaged stuttering. It might be worth a discussing it with the client. (I'm forgetting the age of your client, but s/he might be a bit young for this). If it is something that the client has actively done to manage stuttering, and it results in less severe stuttering compared to previous patterns, than the child is to be congratulated and decisions can be made about whether to go for even finer management. If the child is not aware of it or is aware but has not or cannot do anything to change it(unmanaged stuttering) then it might be worth working at further (I say might because the disfluency may not impact communication very much and may not be of concern to the child.). Good luck!