[ Contents | Search | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Ken St. Louis
Date: 22 Oct 2011
Time: 09:43:22 -0500
Remote Name: 74.47.38.66
Dear Brittany, Interesting questions... Let me offer a few ideas, but I really can't entirely answer either of them. With regard to the question of training programs that offer experience in other cultures, most, in this country do not. Yet, I'm certain that a few programs do have some kind of study abroad options, such as Michigan State at least used to have. I'm at West Virginia University, and we are about to inaugurate such a program, and we hope to start an exchange with a university in Turkey, maybe as early as next summer. If you'd like to be in the loop about that, feel free to write to me off line. You can find my email in the Directory for the WVU home page. (I hesitate to put it in here in case spammers might pick it up with their search procedures.) Second, regarding the likelihood of language barriers being an issue in stuttering therapy, let me make a few points. Language/accent differences are far less important in stuttering therapy than they might be in articulation or language therapy for obvious reasons. That being said, if you work with individuals who do not speak English, and you don't speak their language, then therapy can be difficult. People in many locations are faced with this problem and do use translators. My limited experience doing this sort of thing has not been entirely positive. So long as the therapy is based on fluency shaping or stuttering modification, it is probably not necessary to explain everything; modeling could be even more effective. But when you try to discern and address the client's emotions and thoughts about stuttering, then the language barrier can loom very large. Most clinicians simply defer to others to try to treat in such situations or give only perfunctory treatment. Yet, as the world gets more and more interconnected, this is a problem that we in the USA will no longer be able to ignore as much as we have in the past. I hope this addresses your concerns and questions. Best wishes, Ken