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From: Peter Reitzes
Date: 10 Oct 2011
Time: 12:04:00 -0500
Remote Name: 206.211.69.253
Kayla, thanks for your question. You write, “you say in your article that 75-80% succeed at this coastal breathing technique, and the other 20-25% don't succeed simply because they stop trying.” We did not say this, we quoted someone else who stated that view. As with any speech tool, some or even many may find that the tool is simply not helpful. I will quote Woody Starkweather (1998) at length here: “There are many reasons for ‘relapse’ when the stutterer is taught a new way of talking. The stutterer may grow tired of talking with the intense concentration that the new way requires. Normal speech is free and spontaneous, as nearly all stutterers know from their own periods of normal speech. Sometimes too the targets that are so easy to achieve in the clinical environment are completely inaccessible when the situation is difficult. They work, but only when the stutterer doesn't need them. It seems right to abandon such techniques. Sometimes the person can't seem to remember to use them when engaged in meaningful conversation. It isn't difficult to use them when ‘practicing,’ but as soon as a genuine spontaneous conversation is encountered, the new way of talking seems unavailable. In this case too it seems right to abandon the technique. Why frustrate yourself trying to use it if you can't use it when you need it. Normal speech is spontaneous, nonspontaneous speech is abnormal.” In the same paper, regarding the topic of relapse, Starkweather wrote, “Is it that stuttering stubbornly reasserts itself after treatment, or is it simply that the techniques themselves were not completely useful in the first place?” Some may find that they prefer stuttering over using costal breathing (or stuttering over using fluency shaping or any tool). Others may move on to different treatments and different approaches or choose no treatment. In my experience, it is incredibly premature to suggest that a speech tool (any speech tool) should work for all. You ask, “…do you think that some may just not be able to grasp the concept of the coastal breathing?” A very fair question. In my opinion, costal breathing does not seem a logical way to approach the physical task of speaking (as detailed in our paper). So, from my view, I grasp the costal breathing instructions presented in our paper, but find them as a whole to be illogical, vague and contradictory. Thanks again for writing. The Starkweather source is: http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/isad/papers/starkweather.html