SLP and treatment approaches
Hello. My name is Molly Miller and I am a second year graduate student studying Speech-Language Pathology. I had a question for the panel and was wondering from an SLP point of view, how do you determine which treatment approach is most appropriate for each client, given that stuttering affects everyone differently? Also, if the client is younger, how do you make it a client-based approach?
I have enjoyed reading everyone’s stories and seeing life from different point of views. Thank you for your time.
Respectfully,
Molly Miller
Hi Molly, thanks for taking the time to ask such a thoughtful question. I believe it is our duty as SLPs to learn as many methods of treatment as possible so we can offer them to our clients while we try and learn alongside them if those methods are worth their time and energy to implement, or whether they want to try something else. I like to think of it like a big toolbox, where you can present your client with various tools (a few at once, or one at a time) and see if that tool serves them appropriately in whatever “project” (social scenario, communicative challenge, etc.) that they’re working on.
There are some methods that clients find very helpful and worth putting in work and effort into, whereas other clients might place more emphasis on no methods/techniques at all and only work on open and free stuttering because that feels better for them!