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From: Gunars
Date: 10/10/00
Time: 3:33:44 PM
Remote Name: 12.13.226.13
Bill,
Thank you for your prompt reply. I read one of your references written by somebody with the same name as you :-) "A preliminary look at shame, guilt, and stuttering" In N. Bernstein-Ratner and C. Healy (Eds.) Stuttering Research and Practice: Bridging the Gap. (pp. 131-143). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. It is very good. I, heartily, recommend it to all SLPs.
It made me think, a dangerous process for me :-). This prompted more questions ("A fool can ask more questions than a wise man answer.") To wit:
My hypotheses is that long term success in Stuttering Modification, and the evolution from a choppy, forced speech to flowing (if not fluent) easy, forward moving speech is dependent if the Stuttering Modification techniques are used by the client-therapist-parent team to change the attitudes of the stuttering therapy client. To wit:
1) If the client-therapist-parent team use Cancellation where we expect the client to not try to speak perfectly but to insert voluntary repetitions or prolongations. This is done in order to a) help the client to desensitize himself to stuttering, b) help the client to work against his feelings of urgency, and c) to stay in the moment, i.e. overcome the "petit mort" (Van Riper's term) syndrome.
2) If the pullouts/easy repetitions (Johnson's "Iowa Bounce") are being taught in such a way as to only being pulled out, terminated, when the client feels full control. The reason for this is to give the client a feeling that a) he can modify his speech, b) that even though the "stutter" may start involuntarily he can gain voluntary control over it, c) that he does not have to succumb to the feeling of urgency, and d) to learn that there is little or no penalty for forward moving (Starkweather) easy speech, whether stuttered or not.
3) If the prepullouts or Easy Onsets (Fluency Shaping or Modification) are taught when the speaker is given a heads up by hearing the footsteps of an oncoming block and held unto until the speaker feels that he is in total control. Here the attitude changes that are monitored are a) the client's learning that he does not have to panic when he hears the footsteps of an oncoming block and b) the client's understanding that there is little or no penalty associated with some easy repetitions or forward moving prolonged speech.
If any of these techniques are taught as replacing or hiding stuttering, then the client still confuses the penalties handed out by the environment by struggled, forced speech (including secondary stuttering as jerks of the head, long silent blocks, etc.) and the acceptance of the environment of easy forward moving speech even if it involves some stuttering, i.e. easy repetitions or prolongations.
My bushel full :-) of questions for you are:
A) Although with an adult client I would use REBT to establish these attitudes and reinforce them, can you think of ways to do it with young children? Can parents be taught to reinforce these attitudes in the children?
B) When all these attitudes are in place, and the techniques are working, the sports psychologists call this type of space the "Zone". When a young child is starting to get it do you think that they can be taught to understand the term "Zone"? Can you think of a better term/phrase such as "you appear to be on a roll", etc.
C) How do you convince a child once he has been in a "zone" of freely flowing speech, that it is only a matter of "training" (using Sport Psychology analogy) to get where he can do it most of the time, if not all of the time?
D) And when a child has a lapse from the "Zone" that a post game analysis can help him to see what attitude of technique he has to work on?
E) And, finally, how do you teach a child that all the best athletes sometimes slip out of the "Zone"? That a lapse, does not have to equate to a relapse, let alone a collapse :-)?
Thank you, in advance, taking the time to answer my questions.
Gunars