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From: Lisa LaSalle
Date: 10/1/01
Time: 11:34:32 PM
Remote Name: 24.216.99.91
Scott and others,
Thanks for a helpful tutorial on the NSA research group. You reported a couple findings of interest from the recent studies that you all conducted on support groups (n = 71 in Tacoma, WA): One, that relapse tends to occur for those who participate in fluency-shaping treatment, but there is less relapse for those who participated in stuttering modification or combined treatments. This finding confirms my observations. In support groups for adults who stutter that I observed when I was at University of Virginia, near Hollins College where Ronald Webster’s Precision Fluency Shaping Program is offered, several had suffered relapse. I have known at least one successful graduate of the Hollins program who did not relapse, however. Now we have a new member of our University of WI-Eau Claire support group, a 23-year-old man, who participated in The McGuire Programme (http://www.mcguire-freedomsroad.com/) in Reno, NV early this past summer. I am impressed by the fact that he describes this Tx program as what sounds to be a combination of fluency shaping and stuttering modification approaches, and he has not yet relapsed. He stresses that he needs continued practice in the “sport of speaking” to prevent relapse. I have questioned what he calls “correct” speech breathing techniques that he learned from this program, but I have learned a tremendous amount about stuttering and speech fluency success from him. His case makes me wonder about another of your findings, though, which is that “…there was a strong positive correlation between respondents’ satisfaction with treatment and their judgments of clinicians’ competence, suggesting that improved training in fluency disorders for speech-language pathologists should lead to improved clinical service for people who stutter.” This also makes sense, but notice that the Mcguire Programme is entirely run by people who stutter, for people who stutter. SLPs are not involved, but they are invited for a day and invited to comment on their experiences on the website, from what I gather from the McGuire Programme website.
So, my question to you is: Did any support group members who participated in this research receive successful therapy from non-SLPs? And what do you make of that?
Thanks again for an informative paper.