Office Hours: The Professor is In

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The "fear" of treating people who stutter: Challenges to fluent clinicians!!

From: Steve Hood
Date: 10/14/03
Time: 12:13:21 PM
Remote Name: 199.33.133.50

Comments

Hello to all.

If I have done this properly, this post in only minimally indented. The string of comments to this "fear" issues is beginning to snake all over the page.

There are actually several sub-themes that have emerged from this issue, and I want to try to pick up on some of the ones raised by Walt, and others.

I think that SLP's who are PWS's have an initial advantage, as Walt said, because they have been on the playing field themselves. And as someone else indicated, it is important that they not let they own stuttering history bias them in their treatment of others. Having said that, let me also say that normally fluent SLP's can become highly effective clinicians.

To do this, normally fluent clinicians needs to learn to understand not just the "stutter**ing**" but also the "stutt**er." And this helps them understand not only the surface features of the behaviors, but the deep structures of the emotions: attitudes and feelings.

The normally fluent speaker is advised to do the following:

1. Learn to stutter. Learn to stutter realistically. Learn to stutter with different levels of severity, by varying the frequency, effort, and duration of stuttering moments. Learn to stutter in different ways-- repetitions of sounds and syllables, with prolongations, with tense pauses and silent blocks. Learn to use recoils. Learn to use secondary features of escape and avoidance.

2. Learn to stutter is different situations. Vary the frequency, severity and type of stuttering when you are in a store, on the telephone, going through the 'drive-through window' of a fast food place, etc.

Do these things again and again and again. And then again, until you get to the point where you can do it naturally and spontaneously. Learn to do it well enough that the PWS cannot even tell that you are engaging in pseudostuttering, because you appear to realistic. Watch yourself on video tape, and see if you appear realistic.

4. Become a dues paying member of a self help group such as the National Stuttering Association. Attend regional and national conventions of groups such as Friends, or the NSA. Make plans NOW, to be in Baltimore next June 24-26, 2004, for the NSA Convention.

Read the stories of people who stutter. Books that come to mind are the autiobiographies of Fred Murray ("The Stutterer's Story") and Marty Jeser ("Stuttering: A life Bound Up in Words." Read "Living with Stutttering" -- a book by Ken St.Louis. Read related materials published by support groups such as NSA and Friends.

If you are not a person who stutters, you can never become a member of the stuttering culture. But, you can get involved with members of the stuttering community. You can join their community

Get Involved !!!!!!!!!!

Steve Hood


Last changed: September 12, 2005