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From: Russ Hicks
Date: 10/4/03
Time: 8:44:20 PM
Remote Name: 12.237.88.139
Thank you Renae,
Your professor, Judy Kuster, and I have been friends for many years and we've talked a LOT about the Iceberg. And those discussions with her have helped me shape a lot of my ideas. She's a remarkable person, and you are so lucky to have her as your teacher. She truly "gets it" in the stuttering community.
The next logical extension of the iceberg analogy is a more detailed analysis of covert stuttering. A covert stutterer - a stutterer who doesn't stutter! - is a relatively old concept that is only recently coming to light. And to understand covert stuttering, you've GOT to understand the iceberg. A covert iceberg is huge and VERY dense. Amazingly enough, sometimes it disappears totally beneath the surface. Traditional fluency techniques are next to worthless treating a covert stutterer. As Woody Starkweather said (see his comments above), an SLP has to become a SCUBA diver to treat covert stuttering! Watch for an ISAD paper on that next year. Judy will hound me till I write one, I'm sure. <smile>
Good luck in school!
Russ