Advice for Future SLPs
Hi! My name is Marisa and I am a graduate student studying speech pathology. As a PWS, do you have any advice for future SLPs who may work with individuals who stutter? Also, what strategies have you found to be most helpful in managing your stutter? Thank you for your response!
Hi! My name is Amelia and I am a second year graduate student studying speech-language pathology. What are some ways that we can advocate for out patients who stutter if they are facing difficulties/discrimmination in the workplace or school?
Hello, Marisa, and thank you for these important questions!
I would emphasize these points for future speech-language pathologists:
– It’s important to become familiar with many different therapeutic approaches – fluency shaping techniques, stuttering modification techniques, and psychological approaches (building self-confidence, reducing avoidances, etc.).
– It would be most helpful to provide a therapy protocol for each client individually that would best meet their needs; you should resist the urge to use a “one-size-fits-all” therapy program.
– Please listen to your clients, learn from them, and respect their needs and wishes in designing this protocol – which should be based on an evaluation PLUS what the client has to say about their own perceived needs.
– You should expect that there WILL be relapses now and then. Stuttering differs from many other speech/language disorders in that one cannot expect clients to show relatively steady progress upwards, even with excellent therapeutic skills and knowledge. Relapses are an entirely normal part of the process in stuttering therapy.
– Most importantly, the client should NOT be blamed in any way for relapses. Too often, frustrated SLP’s tell their relapsed clients that what happened was the clients’ own fault, that they didn’t work hard enough, that they didn’t follow instructions properly, etc., etc. These types of comments from SLP’s are all too common, and it is the main reason why many people who stutter develop negative attitudes about SLP’s.
– Instead, the competent and caring SLP needs to have a deep understanding about relapses, and needs to know how to gently guide a PWS back on a track towards good progress.
– It is also important for an SLP to get to know people who stutter on a personal level. I would advise SLP’s and SLP students to attend national and international conferences of people who stutter, talk to people attending, and learn about their life experiences.
– I would also recommend joining online stuttering forums, to learn about what people who stutter are thinking, what they are feeling, and what their therapeutic experiences have been like.
Regarding strategies that I personally have found most helpful, these have changed substantially over the years.
For decades I was obsessed with fluency shaping, and I had the most success with the (now-defunct) Precision Fluency Shaping Program – which retrained people who stutter to speak fluently with well-practiced techniques of relaxed diaphragmatic breathing, gentle onsets, loudness contouring within syllables, and slight stretches/stabilizations of initial voiced sounds.
I was able to enjoy many extended periods, lasting for weeks or sometimes for months, by intensive daily practice and constant monitoring of these techniques.
But every period of fluency ended with relapse – as I discovered that the practice necessary for me to maintain this fluency was just overwhelming.
Eventually, I changed course, and simply and calmly accepted myself as a person who happens to stutter, a person with a speech difference. And life became so much more satisfying for me, and more pleasurable – relieving all the pressure to transform myself into a fluent person. I now realized that life happiness is not dependent on consistency of fluent speech. Okay, so I don’t happen to have consistency of speech fluency. So what? I can simply accept myself as I have been, as I am, and as I will continue to be – a person who just happens to stutter.