From: Anne Bothe
Date: 10/23/00
Time: 3:07:42 PM
Remote Name: 128.192.22.206
Neat question! Here's what we know from the research literature: it works if the thing that stops the speaker is a mother, a father, a clinician, a puppet, a light, a buzzer, or some other older nastier things like a burst of very loud noise. So I don't think it has to be a parent, no. The one thing that I think it does need to be is a safe environment for learning -- which means, essentially, that it has to be a safe environment in which to be corrected. So a teacher correcting a child's stuttering in front of the whole class worries me a bit -- some teachers and some children and some classes would be able to pull it off, and everyone involved would feel good about it, but on the whole I'd be afraid that the child who stutters would be too embarrassed about his peers to benefit from the procedures in that setting. In one on one, with an aide, in a small group, with the grandmother in charge instead of a parent, if the 10-minute sessions every day happened at the babysitter's house instead of with the mom -- sure, I would guess that that would work just fine.