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From: Ellen-Marie Silverman
Date: 02 Oct 2012
Time: 08:35:30 -0500
Remote Name: 76.230.146.138
Hello, Haley, thank you for your interest in this critical matter of evaluating a client's readiness to participate in speech therapy. /// I'm not sure what you mean by "help." So, I'm going to go with what I think you may be asking/saying as a grad student. /// First, a little preamble: When I was an undergraduate faced with the possibility of being a "junior therapist" at the university speech clinic for the first time, I was terrified. I believed I did not know enough to help another speak more clearly. I envisioned my clinical supervisor as a person who would be judging whether I carried out my responsibilities "right" or not, not as someone who had my back. I asked "senior clinicians" for help and they told me to ". . . just follow Van Riper's steps for treating an articulation disorder." Their easy, warm smiles accompanying words of encouragement, such as "You'll do fine" and "Don't worry" helped me stop worrying, start preparing, and conduct myself with dignity. Well, obviously I got through that initial panic, largely because of the encouragement of fellow undergrads and my inherent desire to be of help and my curiosity about human nature. /// So, I'm thinking that you, too, even though you are a graduate student may be a little frightened about working with a client because you may feel fully prepared, and you may be considering enlisting clients' family and friends, at least in part, to help you. Perhaps, you see them as individuals who will support the goals you have selected and the means you are using to help implement them to help provide the authority you may feel you are lacking. If so, let me say first of all that by focusing on your client more than on yourself, by concentrating on meeting your clients' needs and then, perhaps, considering the possibilities with your supervisor, you will automatically feel more settled and skillfull. You will be worrying about yourself less and helping your client more. /// And let me add that each client has their own set of needs, expectations, history, skills, limitations, and readiness for dealing with aspects of their stuttering problem, which I'm sure you have heard or will be hearing, so there is no hard-fast rule for when to enlist the "help" of clients' family and friends during the treatment process and the decision to include them or not and when and how and where needs to be for a specific reason geared to meet your client's needs and expectation. /// Well, I hope I have given you something to think about, Haley, that will allow you to begin to answer this very important question for yourself. Best wishes, Ellen-Marie Silverman