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From: Peter Reitzes
Date: 01 Oct 2006
Time: 22:05:17 -0500
Remote Name: 69.22.238.4
Interesting question Tabitha – thanks for writing. Clinicians need to use their best judgment in these delicate situations. Recently I was meeting with a mother and her 4 year-old son for the first time. The son was playing with a toy while mom and I talked. During our discussion the mother referred to her son’s stuttering as “getting worse” and explained how “bad” it had become. This was a very caring mom who was doing her best to help her son. In this situation, I did not think it would be helpful to “correct” mom’s word choice. Doing so may have put some blame on the mother that she certainly did not deserve. Instead, I purposely asked mom, “How is your son’s stuttering worse? Can you describe it to me?” I used the word “worse” on purpose so that I could “reprimand” myself later. At this point, mom did a great job of explaining her son’s stuttering behavior to me and I even teased mom that she would make a great speech pathologist. Mom laughed Then I smiled and said something like, “Oh, I just slipped up before. I try not and use words like ‘worse’ to describe stuttering. What I meant to say was, ‘Could you please describe your son’s stuttering to me.’” I could tell from mom’s smile that she felt very good about how I handled the situation. At this point mom even commented that she appreciated that I was not “whispering” about stuttering as others had done. To give you another example, I was working with a 15 year old who stutters and his father. The young teen had been stuttering for about ten years and had a lot of shame built up around his speech. The father described his son’s “fluency” as “much worse than ever before” and did not use the word “stuttering” at all. Instead, the father kept referring to “working on fluency.” During our first meeting together, I spoke to the dad privately and said that I would be using the word “stuttering” instead of fluency and that I wanted him to as well. I also explained that words like “worse” and “bad” just are not helpful. Dad and I had a real good discussion on the use of language. The father thanked me for speaking to him so bluntly and agreed that it was time for a change in language. Hope this helps! Peter