Guest Editorial: To our Clinicians by Charles Van Riper.
General information
There are also other programs, typically intensive in nature, for persons who stutter, which are conducted by individuals who are not currently certified by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association for various reasons, or, in several cases, are located outside the United States and may or may not be certified by their country's professional certification board. Some of them are established by persons who stutter who have designed programs out of their own experience. Since they have established an internet presence, they are linked below. Read all materials carefully. If a program tends to blame the person who stutters if the treatment isn't "successful," this is a "red flag." Any website or program that suggests someone has found "the cure" for stuttering, guarentees a 100 percent cure, or attempts to treat stuttering solely by correspondence would not be considered within ethical practice standards of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association. Information on experience with some of these programs is also available here
Misleading adverts - an article in Speaking Out by the British Stammering Association Chair Leys Geddes who has been involved in a campaign against advertisements that give false hope by offering to 'cure' stammering.
Digital snake oil: The emergence of online stuttering scams and slams by Grant Meredith and Anthony Gunn, written for the ISAD 2012 online conference.
ANY proposed speech therapy program for stuttering/stammering that claims to cure or eliminate stuttering in adults that has established an online presence will be listed below. Most of these "programs" are simply ways to empty the pocketbooks of people who stutter. Sites that advertise cures and rely only on "testimonials" (which are often simply made up by the scam artist putting the site online) should be avoided.
Arjun Lal from Canada has developed many scam sites. Compare the following two. Notice the sites are basically identical except for the product advertised. Some of the "verified testimonials" are simply pictures of people that Lal has lifted off the internet without permission, given a false name and written a "testimonial" for.
Arjun Lal has also developed a scheme that claims to share profits with people who advertise his products, so Kill Your Stutter can be found on other sites or with other URLs that Lal may have purchased.
If you type the words
kill your stutter scam
into Google, there are many sites that when you open them, lead to the kill your stutter site. This is yet another marketing ploy to be aware of. Some of the sites found using Google's search engine, open "reviews" such as one by Dan H, who has published 23 articles online "reviewing" many products, leading the reader to websites to purchase products, undoubtedly as click-throughs to sites promising money to the referrer. I will not provide the URL, but Dan H publishes a review of Kill You Stutter that blames the person who stutters if he is not successful with the program. This is yet another red flag that should warn the reader that this program is a SCAM. See Dan's statement below.
You can also find a few good "Quackery Alerts" for Kill Your Stutter
Additional Information on Stammering Therapy for Adults - from the BSA website.
Most of the following suggestions and websites have been developed by individuals who stutter. In those cases, they feel their ideas have worked for them and are shared below. The SHP makes no guarentees or endorsements, it simply provides information that others may find useful. The reader is warned that an idea may work for one individual and not for another.
Some research about efficacy
Experience with Various Therapy Approaches: Some "true believers" and some "non-believers" express their opinions
Image created by Grant Meredith and used here with permission
Information on Efficacy of Stuttering Treatment
To provide additional help in researching these topics, hotlinks have been made to all the articles for which abstracts could be found in the MEDLINE database.
Several years ago Jim McClure suggested "Gathering a few dozen anecdotes [about experiences with various therapy programs] in one place would demonstrate to newcomers that there's no all-purpose cure, and that PWS are most likely to succeed when they take charge of their recovery." If this section becomes a battle field over individual therapy programs, it will be eliminated. It will not be a place where several people line up to condemn or condone an individual or a particular therapy program. It is not a place to post personal "infomercials" about any therapy program. Only a limited number of links will be provided here. What is offered below is not an endorsement or condemnation of any particular therapy program. It is
The reader should keep in mind that some of the discussion on individual web sites and on the mailing lists about stuttering may reflect the experience of those who still stutter, even after trying a variety of therapy programs, and may be negatively biased. Some of the discussion will reflect information from individuals who have found a particular program helpful, but it is also important to remember that what works (or doesn't work) for one individual may or may not work for another. The Stuttering Home Page is not responsible for the opinions expressed by others or for information provided on other websites.
Qualifying and Paying for Therapy Services
The materials on assessment and therapy for speech-language pathologists who work with people who stutter has been integrated into another resource on treatment materials, HERE
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last modified May 11, 2013
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