Family Education
I am a second year graduate SLP student. My question is: What is the best way to educate families about stuttering without overloading them with information, but still providing sufficient information so they are able to best help their child? Are education/counseling sessions done over time or is it best to complete it before therapy begins?
I believe that education and counseling will happen from day one and continue as long as you are serving the family, so the pace of family education will vary depending on each family’s prior knowledge base, parenting style, cultural values, family dynamics, and readiness. I believe that family education is paramount because decreased parental anxiety and worry is one of the first evidences of change in the therapeutic process (Millard et al., 2018).
I always promote caregiver education in order to alleviate fears, blame, guilt, etc., reduce negative reactions, and enable caregivers to respond and advocate in helpful ways. We can help to: 1) increase their awareness and understanding about stuttering, 2) make stuttering an open topic of discussion, 3) foster realistic expectations, 4) increase their confidence in their ability to help, 5) promote positive communicative interactions at home (without pressure for fluency), 6) cultivate a healthy and supportive communicative environment for the child, and 7) facilitate a support network through parent support groups, for example. I believe all of this will help prevent what leads to children’s attempts to hide and suppress stuttering (see Gerlach-Houck’s work on concealment), which always has a negative impact on the child.