[ Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Tim Mackesey
Date: 10/3/03
Time: 6:48:00 PM
Remote Name: 68.158.49.84
Your weather is about to become the kind I have an "aversion" to. I moved to Atlanta from Wisconsin in '87.
I had a session today with a 15 year old who recalled a recent block on the school bus with a peer. He has long streams of fluency and then pronounced blocks. He is capaable of a complete conversation with maybe one block. His face does contort and he used to avert eyes. He noted that his new friend looked away toward the end of his big block.
We did an exercise in which he watched the incident like a movie from the outside (disassociated or meta). As he took the two perceptual positions of speaker and listener, he said "The boy (listener) did not know what to do. We have only known each other for a week or so. It may have been the first block he has seen. It surprised him." After further discussion he said the anext time he will acknowledge the block with humor or "break the ice."
PWS may want to "set the frames" for their on stuttering. What I mean is determine the meaning of their stuttering. When a person "breaks the ice" after a stutter with a comment such as "whoa. that was a tough word (smile)" or just say "sometimes I stutter," they set the frames. THey let the other person know that they are very aware that they just stuttered and that THEY are o.k. with it. Stuttering is something they do and not who they are. THis boy had just plowed through a glaring block and did not acknowledge it at all. If he desires to make bot h parties more comfortable, it serves him well to break the ice.
PWS can advocate for themselves and set the frames.
THe exercise we did allowed him to "reframe" the experience and learn life skills for the future. He had initially said he felt "embarrassed." After the exercise, that was replaced with "I am o.k. with it." That is big.
Do you ever go into Fargo to study dialects? Just kidding. I am a cheese head.
CHeers, Tim