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From: Cindy Spillers
Date: 23 Oct 2006
Time: 15:12:19 -0500
Remote Name: 131.212.90.190
Thanks for your questions, Emily. Covert stuttering is very difficult to work with. People who cover up their stuttering so that they rarely have obvious core stuttering behaviors (repetitions, prolongations, and blocks), have a great deal to lose by giving up their cover strategies. The cover strategies allow the person to appear to have normal fluency because they hide their stuttering so well. Accepting stuttering requires the person to give up those cover strategies, and give up passing as normally fluent. This is a huge undertaking for the individual -- an undertaking that requires enormous conviction and commitment to self from the client, and patience, gentleness, and acceptance from the clinician. In my experience, people with covert stuttering need to reach a point where the pain of maintaining the cover up far exceeds the gain of appearing to have normal fluency, in order for them have the energy they need for treatment.