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From: Ellen-Marie
Date: 10/22/01
Time: 7:53:23 AM
Remote Name: 172.138.68.230
Dear Nita,
The following three studies I authored or co-authored may begin to answer your very important questions: (1) Silverman, E.-M, and Zimmer, C., (1979), Women sho stutter: Personality and speech characteristics. J. Speech and Hearing Res., 22, 553-564; (2) Silverman, E.-M., Communication attitudes of women who stutter. J. Speech Hearing Dis., 45, 533-539; (3) and Silverman, E.-M., and Zimmer, C., (1982), Demographic characteristics and treatment experiences of women who stutter. J. Fluency Dis., 7, 273-285.
You also may be interested in the findings of Silverman, E.-M., (1982), Speech-language clinicians' and university students' impressions of women and girls who stutter. J. Fluency Dis., 7, 469-478 where speech-language clinicians (more so than the university students) weree likely to consider girls who stutter as "insane" (using a semantic differential rating task). This was one of the most outstanding findings of that research.
In general, my research revealed men were more likely to continue treatment into adulthood and at a much higher percentage than the incidence (of stuttering) data would indicate. I speculated that this may be due to males' greater belief that treatment is helpful to them in some way, females belief that stuttering therapy provides little to no benefits (they expressed different preferences for treatment options than did the males and options possibly less likely to be easily encountered), and/or females experience a higher cure rate early on and do not want/need to continue treatment into adulthood. However, if the findings of clinicians' impressions of women and girls who stutter (i.e., that they were more likely to be considered "insance")typified the perceptions of clinicians at that time and earlier, it may not be surprising that fewer women chose to continue treatment into adulthood (a time when they would have been more likely to make their own decisions) with professionals who undoubtedly projected their negative perceptions of them, i.e., that they considered girls who stuttering less than whole.
My research was conducted in the late '70's, early 80's. I think it would be quite instructive to replicate it at the present time. This line of inquiry helping to establish whether or not and how gender differences continue in demographics, treatment experiences, others' (including speech-language pathologists') perceptions of women who stutter, and attitudes toward communication itself further encourages us to develop and carry out treatment experiences appropriate for individuals.
On a personal note, I have observed women enrolled in stuttering therapy and support groups marginalized both by the men participating and, at the time, the males leading/facilitating the groups. I provided a summary of these observations in the chapter I authored, "The Female Stutterer," in Ken St. Louis' book, The Atypical Stutterer. Being marginalized in a treatment/support group would, of itself, encourage any self-respecting woman to discontinue group involvement. But, again, groups experiences, at this point in time, may be egalitarian experience for males and females. At least, I would hope that they would!
Thank you for encouraging this discussion of stuttering treatment in adulthood as experienced by men and women who stutter. I hope reading my research will be helpful.
Ellen-Marie Silverman