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From: Gunars
Date: 10/7/00
Time: 10:09:47 AM
Remote Name: 206.63.34.41
Bridget et al,
My hypothesis, unproven, are as follows:
a) The Hawthorne Effect so well known in psychological circles. When the efficiency experts studied the production rates at the Hawthrone plant, no matter what they did the production increased. Turning up the lighting and turning it down. It, in the short term, worked. So when a child all of sudden gets more attention and is being patiently worked with, he may get better.
b) In the present day therapies most of the attention given to the child is not authoritarian and disciplinary but peppered with unconditional acceptance (a la Ellis) and positive regard (a la Rogers) which raise in the child their own unconditional self acceptance and positive self regard so that he can accept himself whether he stutter or not, whether he struggle or not. (See, for example, the Lidcombe Programme). [A personal note: In the good old days of strict disciplinarians in Europe we got a lot of punishment for not talking in sing-song voice. In my opinon, it only helped me to become more determined to do demand that I become perfect speaker and the pressure made me, in the sports parlance, "choke". It sent me into a tail spin where I had perfectionistic standards for myself that I could not meet. Since I could not attain my standards I kept on downing myself, thinking that I am a worm for not doing what I had to do, etc. When during the strict behaviorist heyday the enlightened :-) Americans offered to help me with giving me obnoxious electrical shock everytime I did not follow their regime, I quit therapy.]
I think that the reason why therapy does not stick is that little attention is given to how to handle relapses which for a significant portion of the stutterers is inevitable.
Gunars