Comments

Advice for a Future SLP — 1 Comment

  1. Jasmine, this is a broad question, so I will zone in on two things. I believe that much of what children internalize about stuttering comes from feelings that stuttering is “wrong” or “bad”, so a good starting place is generally helping children who stutter understand that stuttering is not their fault and that they’re not doing something wrong. Teaching about how brain function affects speech production (e.g., understanding neurons, neural connections and pathways, etc.) at their level is also helpful so they understand why stuttering is involuntary, variable, and unpredictable. Children need to know that they are not doing something wrong by stuttering or are inherently “bad” for it. Another helpful activity is drawing their stuttering iceberg (i.e., what’s above and below the surface) because it fosters open conversations about stuttering and enables them and you to understand the impacts of stuttering in their lives a little better, and minimizing those negative impacts is what should drive treatment.

Leave a Reply

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>