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From: John Paskievich
Date: 11 Oct 2006
Time: 18:13:42 -0500
Remote Name: 24.66.94.140
Ed I can appreciate why you continue to call for a muti-disciplinary approach for the treatment of stuttering. Stuttering can quickly develop from a speech disorder to a life disorder. Speech is what defines us most as human beings. Not being able to speak properly is, inevitably, to feel diminished as a human being. However noble your call for a multi-disciplinary approach may be, it is impractical for the reasons John Tetnowski outlined. Firstly, no private or public health system could afford to pay a team of psychologists, coaches, trainers etc to treat an individual stutterer. Even now good therapy from well trained pathologists is not readily available or easily affordable in North America. In other parts of the world treatment for stuttering is non-existant. Stuttering is simply not a health care priority. The same is true for learning disorders like dyslexia and ADHD. Secondly, most psychologists, coaches, trainers know next to nothing about stuttering. Teaching assertiveness training to a fluent person is entirely different from teaching it to someone who stutters. I can't imagine these professionals spending the time and effort to learn about stuttering to the same degree as a speech pathologist who specializes in stuttering. The best that any stutterer can do, right now, is to form their OWN personal team by doing a lot of reading, speaking with fellow stutterers and experienced speech pathologists, taking part in self help groups and confereces and exchanging thoughts on internet forums like this one. The stutterer, in other words, must become his or her own multi-disciplinary team. -John Paskievich