Family involvment
How can SLPs change their perspectives and attitudes towards stuttering and get them involved in helping their loved ones? If it’s a child, what resources can we offer to help their parental figure learn to be an effective advocate?
Hi Chloe Mai,
Thank you for your question. When working with families it is crucial to help them establish a good understanding of stuttering and its possible consequences. This is not always an easy task. Often times parents come in with an expectation for their child to be fluent and for the stutter to “just go away”. It is part of the process of therapy to explain to families what stuttering is and our lack of ability to make it “go away”. It is also our job to explain to them the impact of that desire on the child’s self-perception and the build-up of Sheehan’s iceberg down the road. When parents are challenged to look ahead at their child’s future, assuming that the stuttering remains, they typically want the same thing for their child- to be able to communicate freely, live up to their own desires and be happy. Understanding this helps in having a better perspective of what the true difficulty is and where their child truly needs their support. My favorite path is getting parents involved with relevant organizations- The Stuttering Foundation, The NSA, Friends etc. This gives them the opportunity to learn from the best- people who are or have been in their situation.
Thank you for your question Chloe Mai. I think it is important to build education about stuttering into any therapy plan. I will generally talk about up to date research about why people stutter during my first assessment session with a family, this helps parents to understand why their child is stuttering and they may reevaluate any inaccurate views they have picked up before about stuttering relating to ‘nervousness’ or ‘shyness’ etc. Yes, parents may come to therapy with the hope that this will make stuttering ‘disappear’ for their child, but increasing parental knowledge about stuttering and drawing attention to their child’s communicative strengths can help them to view the situation differently. It is always helpful to let parents know about the wonderful stuttering community. In the UK I signpost families to stamma.org and the various options they offer for parental support. I hope that parents see me advocating for their child and are able to follow my example and suggestions to become an advocate for their child themselves. This in turn acts as a model for the child to follow to advocate for themselves, building their confidence and resilience to do so.