We all have significant memories and experiences from our youth that influence our adult life. Most of mine took place on a cattle and sheep ranch and a one-room country school in the Rocky Mountains of northwestern Colorado.

I have stuttered ever since I can remember. I had virtually no speech therapy until the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. It was during that summer program at the University of Wyoming that I decided to become a speech-language pathologist.

I underwent therapy at my undergraduate alma mater, Colorado State University, using a Van Riperian desensitization and voluntary control approach. After nearly two years my clinicians' supervisor, Bill Leith, instituted a "get tough" policy with me which produced a dramatic turning point in my therapy. For several months, I was able to be a stutterer or a near-normal speaker at will.

After completing my undergraduate work, I entered the Peace Corps in Turkey. During that two-year period, I returned to my old stuttering, but mainly in the Turkish language only. I never have resolved that "relapse."

After completing graduate work at the Universities of Michigan and Minnesota, I have worked continually as a faculty member in speech-language pathology, three years at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh and 21 years at West Virginia University. Throughout this period, I have treated, or supervised treatment, of child and adult stutterers continually. My training and experience in stuttering therapy is broad and eclectic, including: voluntary controls, fluency shaping, anxiety reduction, linguistic management and contingent management.

Following are some of the principles that guide my thinking a approach to treating stuttering;

• Little or no stuttering as a result of therapy is more likely to be acceptable to clients and to the public than considerable residual stuttering.
  • Preschool stuttering children can often be "cured."
  • Adult clients should be presented options and should decide themselves just how fluent they want to be.
    • Motivation is best viewed in terms of effort or cost for the client at any given point in his or her life versus the benefits expected or already achieved.
  • There are some stutterers that we probably cannot treat.
• Natural speech with a little stuttering is a lot easier for the client and clinician to take than mechanical-sounding speech with no stuttering.
• I use what works.
• I typically opt for the most direct way to get the client to experience fluency.
• Clients must use their therapy techniques to "try to talk in a new way" and not to "try not to stutter."
• Clients who are successful in therapy from "speak more fluently" and "stutter more fluently" approaches typically end up doing the same things.
• Clients respond positively to straight talk and honesty.
• Clients also respond well to humor.
• Emotions often do play a significant role in stuttering and, if so, need to be addressed in therapy.
• Successful adults who stutter:
  • Have made conscious decisions to assume responsibility for their own progress
  • Have confidence in their therapy skills.
  • Have sufficient control over thoughts and feelings in order to modify their speech when necessary.
• Excellent clinicians for stutterers do not have to be stutterers themselves.
• There will always be more to learn.