ISA
International Stuttering
Association
A world that understands stuttering
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ISA A world that understands stuttering |
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Updated
June 21, 2008 |
We need to be open minded... By: Judith Eckardt As some of you know, I'm a clinical supervisor at the Successful Stuttering Management Program (SSMP) in WA in the summer for 3.5 weeks. We normally have 10 stutterers and 20 clinicians. Most of the clinicians are second year SLP graduate level students but each year we invite a few stutterers who have come through the program to be "clinicians" to the new stutterers.This has worked great for us because they are excellent role models but we have been criticized in the professional community. We continue doing it because it is so beneficial for the spirit of the program. This past summer one of our best clinicians was Barry Stullberg who in real life is a successful attorney for Microsoft in Seattle. We need to be open minded and not just necessarily follow the wishes/demands of the professional community. Many times they are behind in knowing what helps people who stutter. A very good example of this is "reduction of frequency of dysfluencies". For years and years, this was considered as the most important indicator of "success". Finally, they are beginning to move away from that criteria for success in the SIDs Fluency Group in ASHA. At SSMP, we consider our successful stutterer to be the person who has eliminated avoidance behaviours, has much willingness to communicate in all situations, advertises that he stutters, and may still have dysfluencies in his speech. Handling techniques have the least focus in SSMP therapy but if stutterers do the first 3, they are good at using handling techniques to smooth out their speech. ISA therapy lists need to be comprised of what we have heard is good from other stutterers and to protect ourselves, a disclaimer statement needs to be present. DIFFERENT THERAPIES/APPROACHES WORK FOR DIFFERENT PEOPLE and we need to respect that. January 2001 |
