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From: Emily Garnett
Date: 28 Apr 2010
Time: 17:19:27 -0500
Remote Name: 173.81.117.198
Thank you for the question Kallie. I think with practice and careful demonstration by the SLP, most clients would begin to see the difference without too much difficultly. I am a big fan of recording clients and having them hear their own speech. I even think younger kids could do this. Have the client answer questions or read, while recording his speech, and then go back and listen to it and point out the hesitations. I imagine with some practice the client would be able to point out his own hesitations. The pauses that are taught in therapy are, as you mentioned, to slow down speech or to assist the clutterer in breaking up very long utterances into smaller ones. Some previous research suggests that longer utterances are more cluttered than shorter ones. I would say that first demonstrating appropriate pauses, perhaps even excessive pausing, to the client would be one place to start. Then you would gradually build in more words between pauses. Intentional pauses are typically located in specific parts of a sentence, such as at commas or natural breaks in the flow of the utterance. In therapy, I would try having the client read some prepared paragraphs in which you have strategically placed commas, which are to indicate to the client to pause. Then begin to have the client place his own commas, with eventually the client reading and pausing without the visual cue. These are just some ideas. I hope that others will continue to add more. Thanks again for your question!