A Model for Manipulating Linguistic Complexity in Stuttering Therapy

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Goals of Therapy?

From: Carrie Elam, ECU graduate student
Date: 10/21/01
Time: 12:01:04 PM
Remote Name: 150.216.69.94

Comments

I enjoyed reading this article. It provided an interesting approach to stuttering therapy. I liked the fact that it was centered on discourse that is meaningful to clients. However, knowing that up to 80% of children spon- taneously recover from stuttering, I venture to ask what your goal is for treating children who stutter. In Brad's case, I'm sure therapy increased his self-esteem and since self-esteem is crucial for children to have, I think it was great that Brad was able to have his boosted by therapy. But since adults are usually more comfortable and less self-conscience about their stuttering, I am also interested to know your therapy goal for this population. Because adults are beyond the point of spontaneous recovery, once a person reaches adulthood, it is safe to say that they will always be a stutterer. I wonder if you have you heard of the fluency device (based on DAF)? It acts as a second speech signal, much like choral speech. Since it inhibits stuttering at its source (the brain), it works successfully (with most clients) to prevent ouvert stuttering (prolongations, repetitions). Therapy is still needed for clients with this device, but only to help them use it effectively. Sometimes "lucky fluency" may occur after manipu- lating the peripheral nervous sytem over time, but such fluency cannot endure. So, that is why I ask what your goal of therapy is for children and adults alike.


Last changed: September 12, 2005