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From: Kevin O'Neill
Date: 09 Oct 2012
Time: 15:37:00 -0500
Remote Name: 24.18.229.12
I think that stuttering therapy with children should depend a lot on their age. For very young children I don't think we should even be telling them that they have a "speech disorder" -- often they're still learning to speak, and the pressure to perform (not stutter) is counterproductive. I think that children benefit from a relaxed environment where they can speak without pressure, and that the focus should be on core speech mechanics like deep breathing, relaxed chest/jaw and easy vocalizations. To take an analogy with sports, if a kid is having problems with tennis, you don't want to obsessively focus on what they're doing wrong [this goes back to the psychology of "ironic errors" as mentioned in my article], but rather spend lots of time on drills that reinforce the basics. A coach isn't there to fix a "sports dysfunction" but to help the kid improve holistically and become more relaxed, natural, and confident over time.