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From: Vasu Parameswaran
Date: 06 Oct 2006
Time: 12:42:07 -0500
Remote Name: 206.106.168.10
I think the fundamental problem here is that there is no cure for stuttering - period. Clinician students want to learn tools to solve real world problems and apply them in their professional lives to make a living - not to merely learn the nature of stuttering (as mind bogglingly interesting it is) and the various controversies surrounding therapy approaches. There has been no fundamental breakthrough in this regard in the last 15 years and it does not seem too surprising then that there has been no positive development in clinician's attitudes towards preparedness. What can organizations like ASHA do anyway - mandating that a larger number of hours be devoted to stuttering can do little to change this bottom-line. If the goal instead were to reduce the debilitating influence of stuttering on a stutterer's life and if it can be demonstrated that the training a student receives can produce a very significant change in the quality of life of stutterers, then more clinicians may be motivated to specialize in stuttering and more stutterers may be interested in receiving treatment. Those were just some comments (no real questions there). If you got this far, thanks for reading :-).