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From: Bobby Childers
Date: 10/19/01
Time: 8:15:04 AM
Remote Name: 216.234.195.23
I'm glad that you found my paper inspiring. After I wrote it and sent it to Judy Kuster, I had fears of it causing students to leave the profession.
I think that is a judgement call between the SLP and the client. Even though I throughly despise telephones, and try my best not to answer them when they start that annoying ringing they do. I still manage to get through talking on the phone.
My student clinicians kept trying to get me to practice using the phone in the clinic, and I kept resisting partly because I personally couldn't see how talking into a dead phone would help me.
I have heard of people practicing using the phone during therapy sessions on the stuttering listservs, and many of them have said that it really helped them get over the fear.
I just consider the phone to be a part of my daily life (I'm stuck with a pager, and cell phone from work), so I make do. When I do answer the phone, I take a deep breath first, then concentrate on using my techniques.
So, should SLP's use the phone as a training tool in therapy? Good question. I would talk with the client and get their response, and then go from there. All clients will have different feelings towards using the phone, some will be like me and prefer to work on other things, and some will want to do some "phone therapy".