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From: Peter Ramig
Date: 10/15/02
Time: 2:33:04 PM
Remote Name: 128.138.238.113
I concur with Dr. Hood's suggestion regarding activities for carrying over newly learned targets, so I will not address treatment of the child's stuttering. Rather, I would like to make a cautionary statement about his articulation. I sometimes get nervous when clinicians focus on both articulation and stuttering. To clarify, I caution against using traditional articulation drills with a child who stutters. Drilling or working a child hard at attaining correct articulation often means the child will work hard to produce correct targets in his attempts to please the clincian. Doing so can create more tension, something a stutterer does not need, and can, in some cases, spiral the stuttering. I do not think there is any doubt that harder articular contacts created from trying to correct something that is difficult to correct (articulation), or anything that causes a child to increase muscular tenion, is helpful in reducing stuttering. In contrast, vocal tension can fuel stuttering. So, I would suggest working on articulation in combination with the stuttering ONLY if it is accomplished in a more passive manner through, for example, easier contacts, modeling, etc.