Stuttering and Bilingualism in Children and Adults

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Parent Participation in Treatment of Bilingual CWS

From: Nohemi Torres
Date: 16 Oct 2008
Time: 15:24:30 -0500
Remote Name: 130.70.14.164

Comments

The positive report from the treatment of Ms. Shenker's client undoubtedly owes a great deal to the strong support of the parents. Under the Libcombe Program, with parents who actively get involved in the treatment of their child, there are numerous opportunities that present themselves throughout the day for treatment. Thus it is no surprise to me that the child's stuttering improved in both languages. I wonder about the 5yr-old client in the Humphrey study, however. The parents specifically requested treatment in English, and later reported improvement in Spanish as well. Were they actively taking part in his treatment in English, since they were also bilingual for both languages? What was the nature of his treatment exactly? I see the phenomenon as a whole: treatment can be internalized by the client and then translated to his other language without further specialized treatment for that other language. But I wonder if parent participation could have been what facilitated it so well in these cases, or if it really does just happen on its own? A comparative statistical analysis of the progress of bilingual children and adults who stutter with varying degrees of family involvement could probably answer that reeeeeal quick. What do you think?


Last changed: 10/16/08