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From: Peter Reitzes
Date: 02 Oct 2011
Time: 10:24:17 -0500
Remote Name: 66.57.22.122
Aonghus, great constructive points! Thank you for taking the time to share them. I appreciate your comment that “costal breathing should not be regarded as things totally separate from normal breathing, but instead they should be things you should merely emphasise as part of normal breathing.” One of the big differences is that normal breathing is not conscious; this approach called costal breathing appears to be a very conscious speaking strategy. While I am sure you are aware of this, I did want to mention that this is a huge difference. You mention that perhaps we should have “avoided relying so much on the 'McGuire[Program] Unmasked' document - I'm not sure it's a good source upon which to base academic analysis.” One of the reasons we chose that document is because numerous people who contacted StutterTalk about costal breathing reported costal breathing experiences that were strikingly similar to those described in the document. The article “McGuire Program Unmasked” appears to be very representative of the costal breathing experiences I have heard and read about. You mention the importance of “academic analysis,” but as we say in the paper, as far as I can tell there are no published, peer reviewed research studies available on costal breathing. You also suggest that we could have based our paper, at least partly so, on a book. When people ask me about fluency shaping, stuttering modification, pausing, rate control, forward moving speech, avoidance reduction, advertising or other strategies, I never say to them that you really need to purchase a book to understand them. It seems to me that adults who stutter who have participated in programs and instructors or teachers associated with those programs should be able to adequately describe the strategies and approaches used. One last point, it was important to me that the source we used is freely available. This way, readers of our article can go to an original source (the McGuire Program Unmasked article) and read it without having to purchase something. You wrote, “I also think it's also important to look at the costal breathing technique in a holistic way... but that the physical elements shouldn't be viewed as being independent of each-other.” I am not exactly sure what you mean. Would you mind explaining this idea more? Thanks again Aonghus for your comments and thoughts!