Stories of People Who Stutter

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Re: Constructing the Journey

From: David Shapiro
Date: 10 Oct 2011
Time: 12:26:59 -0500
Remote Name: 152.30.155.29

Comments

Hi Julia, Thanks for your kind words. You are asking a very comprehensive question! Indeed, getting to the heart and soul of communication takes both knowledge and skill, if not wisdom from diverse personal and professional experience, on the part of a clinician. Also, the client and family must be active members of all aspects of the treatment process. Elsewhere I wrote that “Communication is a uniquely human experience.” It is therefore the clinician’s responsibility to work with this most tender territory – communication - and to understand the nature of this very special process. In order to create a context for success to occur, I spend much time working toward achieving communication interaction characterized by collaboration (we engage in all aspects of treatment process together), success (activities are designed for – and later with, and eventually by – the client so that the client experiences communication success), and fun (everything we do must be genuinely enjoyable for all involved). There is probably nothing as motivating as success itself. What’s more, we create a treatment context as a “safe house,” we invite treatment objectives from the client, we heighten the client’s awareness of his speech fluency, we jointly design extra-clinical assignments, we develop or improve use of fluency facilitating techniques, we address feelings and attitudes directly, we work toward fluency transfer from the first day, and more. It is hard to provide as comprehensive a picture as I would like in a brief response regarding how I create opportunities for clients to experience fluency freedom. Would you take a look at my book that was just released in revised form (Stuttering Intervention: A Collaborative Journey to Fluency Freedom, 2nd ed., 2011, proedinc.com)? It addresses how I work across the age span (from preschoolers to senior adults) and offers goals, objectives, and procedures, all of which are explained in detail with numerous examamples. Please feel free to contact me by email. I would be happy to follow up more thoroughly. Hope this helps for now. Kindly, David


Last changed: 10/10/11