Because I Stutter

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Re: Wow!

From: Russ Hicks
Date: 29 Oct 2006
Time: 16:38:02 -0600
Remote Name: 71.123.208.188

Comments

Hi Ashley, ..... Thanks for your kind words. Judy Kuster gave me some extra time to answer your question, so here goes... ..... You asked (fundamentally) what would I change on my own therapy as a child? That's sort of like asking a Civil War veteran who had a leg amputated on the battlefield what he would have wanted if he were in modern combat. My gosh, darn near everything! I went to speech camp in the 1950 (when the earth's crust was just cooling <grin>) and had a form of therapy which was a primitive form of fluency shaping. The objective was NOT to stutter AT ALL, rather than learn how to deal with the stuttering itself. The ideas of emotions and attitudes didn't come into play until several years later and were later explained in pictorial form by the Iceberg Analogy of Stuttering. See my paper on the stuttering iceberg at http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/isad6/papers/hicks6.html for details of this. The iceberg - one of the most fundamental breakthroughs in understanding stuttering in the last 50 years - wasn't even conceived until about 1970 and wasn't really publicized until nearly 2000. The people in my camp were clueless on the emotional/psychological baggage beneath the waterline of the iceberg so they never even thought to treat it! No wonder my therapy failed. But it wasn't their fault. It wasn't anyone's fault really. We just didn't know. ..... So I would have wanted them to know about the stuttering iceberg first and foremost. ..... I would also want them to know about the modern therapy techniques used primarily in treating children who stutter. And I am NOT an expert on that topic! These techniques include speech modeling by parents and linguistic aids like storybooking and a host of techniques which were learned primarily by researchers working in the field of brain maturation. How does a brain mature in children with regards to speaking? That's NEW science - and the foundation of modern speech pathology. I would also want an SLP working with children to understand the stuttering iceberg and the importance of not letting the iceberg grow! Little ice cubes are FAR easier to work with than giant icebergs. Just ask the captain of the Titanic! ..... Does that answer your question, Ashley? ..... I wish you the best! ..... Russ, my email is russhicks@mail.com


Last changed: 10/30/06