Notes from a Stuttering "Expert"

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Re: Advice for a new clinician

From: Vince Vawter
Date: 21 Oct 2011
Time: 07:40:51 -0500
Remote Name: 67.187.126.12

Comments

Oh my, Whitney. It seems as if you are cutting your clinical teeth on a good one. By all means, the father and son and the entire family need to talk about the speech difficulties with each other. If not, it becomes the elephant in the living room and just festers in the background. The question is: How? My sense is that with a 5-year-old the main ingredient of the discourse should be not to make a big deal about the discussion. While a child might not grasp all the words in a conversation, he can certainly hear the worry and concern. In my case, I began stuttering badly at 4 and I was not taken to a therapist until I was 14. At that point, all I wanted to do was hide my stutter. My son started stuttering at the same age, but by 6 it was a non-issue for him because he had a good therapist and he worked hard (without realizing it) to overcome it. Is it possible to approach it this way? The father might say: "Son, when I was your age I spent all my time learning how to throw a baseball well and I didn't learn how to talk smoothly. You can sure kick a soccer ball well but you need to make sure you are learning how to smooth out your words. I'm going to try to work on the way I talk the way I should have done when I was your age. Let's work on it together." (Notice I used the phrase "to talk smoothly" and not "to talk right" or "talk without stuttering.") As I write those words, it all rings a little hollow to me. If the father is not comfortable with that approach, it won't work because the son will hear the gravity of the situation in the father's voice. I have another idea, and I'm sure you won't find this in any textbooks. And remember that I have not an ounce of clinical training or expertise. In my son's case (age 4), he had expressed an interest in music, sawing on an old plastic toy banjo with a stick. We started him on Suzuki violin lessons at age 5. As he practiced his violin (I heard "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star many times every day), we noticed his fluency was also improving. I have no idea if the music and fluency are connected in anyway, but it seemed that music was a positive outlet and somehow it did enhance the therapy. As you read in my paper, my son is now a physician and, I might add, one heck of a bluegrass fiddler. This advice may be totally off base, but one thing I'm sure of is that the stuttering must be confronted and talked about by the family -- now. Every day's delay makes the stuttering imprint that much stronger. A 5-year-old mind is capable of amazing feats. Encourage the father not to be hesitant to talk his son. Stuttering is lonely enough as it is.


Last changed: 10/21/11