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From: Woody
Date: 10/22/00
Time: 8:37:16 AM
Remote Name: 155.247.229.58
I firmly believe that preschool children do best when both direct and indirect treatment is provided, and I second the opinions of Ken and Nan about bringing it out in the open. ONe of the best ways to do this, in my opinion, is to stutter a little yourself in front of the child. Not too often, and certainly not with struggle and tension, but light, easy whole word repetitions that are brief, say one or two extra syllables. This will show the child that some disfluency, of the type that she started struggling with, are acceptable behavior. So you have to be careful, as the Mom, to model an accepting attitude toward these disfluencies that you are producing.
I sometimes think that having children who stutter, even if briefly, is an occupational hazard of being an SLP. Someone should actually gather the data, but when I give a workshop to SLP's, I ask how many have kids who have stuttered, and I usually get a 10-15 per cent positive response. I know, I know, that could be why they came to the workshop. Still, I would like to see someone get the real data.