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From: Margaret Leahy
Date: 10/18/02
Time: 5:10:11 AM
Remote Name: 134.226.1.115
Yes, application of PCT is entirely possible with the school-age child who stutters. A descritpion of the methodology would demand another paper however. A. T. Ravenette did a lot of work in the 1980s in the area (e.g., in G. Dunnett's 1988 book: Working with People: Clinical uses of PCP. London: Routledge). In his article in this book, he emphasizes principles which can help develop a skill in questioning when working with children: the first one is: simply go along with what the child says; No 2, be pretared to challenge what he says in the pursuit of meaning. These two together imply an attitue of sceptical credulity. No 3 poses four questions, leading to clarification of what the child has to say; asking: what does the child's answer deny? what does it further imply? what does the answer presuppose: what is the context within which the answer is valid. Principle no 4 is to ask further questions when child's answer seems to be a lacking in depth. A 5th principle requires that the child answers a precise question with an appropriate answer, not something generally related to the question ; this may need to be pursued a little. Without putting this in context and experimenting it may be difficult to understand, but I hope not. Tom Ravenette also uses the 'Who are you?' (WAY) approach to having children talk about themselves: e.g., "I would like to know who you are. If I were to ask you 3 things about yourself to describe you, what would y ou say?" following these up with asking the child to elaborate more.
I hope this is informative, but realise that it would be better to give examples... in this context, not easy.
Thanks for your interest.
Margaret.