Changing the Narrative as a Future Speech-Language Pathologist
Hello! My name is Peyton Ryba and I am a student at the University of South Carolina where I am in my second year of the MS-SLP program. This semester, we are taking a class on stuttering and have been exposed to the stuttering community in many avenues. We have heard from guest speakers who stutter, watched documentaries, discussed various perspectives on stuttering, and now have the privilege of reading through articles for the ISAD conference.
With that being said, our group wanted to ask for perspectives from people who stutter on their personal experiences with speech-language pathologists. Our group read the article from Michelle Polinsky titled, “Listening, A Tall Order”, and found it extremely interesting how she discussed changing narratives behind stuttering that children and adolescents have been exposed to by SLPs who were not familiar with stuttering. As future clinicians, is there one takeaway you would encourage us to explore more as we embark on our careers? How can we change the narrative of promoting acceptance rather than the goal of fluency?
Hi Peyton,
You asked a very complex and interesting question.
I will give you one piece of advice, which for me can make a huge difference: become part of the community of pws.
Unfortunately, the problem you pose does not have a one-size-fits-all answer, it depends on the context, the place, the time… As much as they may seem so at first glance, I can assure you that the challenges faced by an American pws are different from those faced by an Italian pws. And probably even within the United States itself there is a diversity of issues, needs, knowledge…
By becoming active in the community, you will be able to realize the diversity of viewpoints, the diversity of pws’ needs and wants. I think it could be a formative experience on a professional and human level.
Andrea