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From: Doug
Date: 10/6/03
Time: 9:25:18 AM
Remote Name: 147.129.18.202
Judy, Thanks for your comments. I find that metaphors and examples from non-speech behaviors and experiences help clients (and myself) understand the seemingly mysterious and often frightening stuttering problem.
Dean Williams was a master at talking with children about 'talking". I find myself drawing from those conversations almost every day. His chapter in the SFA publication Counseling Stutterers is a great example of his thinking. From my point of view the key is experiential (doing) rather than intellectual (telling) learning. Therefore, I find the specific terms used to describe talking are not as important as the actual feeling and imagery of how we talk. That is, help the child experience the sensation of easy, fluid speech movements (NOT FUENCY) and then contrast these features with varying degrees of hesitation, abruptness, pushing, tensing, etc. Once the child is able to experience variations in talking, they often find their own words to describe it. Then use the child's descriptions. In this way, the child begins to understand that talking is something they do and that they have choices of how they should do it. Successful talking, in my opinion, should never be perceived as perfect talking (talking without stuttering). The focus of attention is not on reducing the occurrence of stuttered words but on developing a feeling of being in charge of talking easily when the situation calls for it. Doug