Future SLP Advice and Navigating Therapy
Hello, my name is Morgan, and I am a graduate student pursing speech pathology. I am currently working with a few clients who stutter and have learned so much from them. What have you learned out in the field that you wish would have been taught in grad school?
Also, how do you navigate validating a client in their feelings and self-worth while working towards goals to improve fluency? What does this look like in therapy sessions?
This is a great question, Morgan. When I think back of my time as an SLP-student in The Netherlands all I learned was that stuttering was difficult and working with people who stutter even more. I learned that working with stuttering and people who stutter is the best part of my job. If my teacher had explained it the way I do now, I think I would have been a stuttering therapist 2 years earlier, just when I finished my SLP-studies. I have learned the most meeting people who stutter and making friends. They are the only people who know what really works for them! I learned to listen wo them with my ears and my heart.
In the beginning I thought it was scary, but it is not at all. I just was, because I had never met someone who stutters, only learned the theoretical part and did not really know what to do.
I do not necessarily work on improving fluency. We mainly work on decrerasing the struggle, the shame, the frustration, the negative feelings, self-worth and yhings like that. If needed, we can work on some techniques they can use in certain situations, but that is definitely not the main goal. The main goal in my therapy is always: after therapy you can say what you want to say, however and whenever you want to say it.
Manon
Thanks for your question, Morgan. Something I wish was taught in grad school was actually aligns with a previous ISAD theme- one size does not fit all. Stuttering therapy should be uniquely tailored to the person that you are providing therapy for. I’ve learned that things that are priorities to some PWS are definitely not priorities to other PWS.
As my colleague, Manon, mentioned above, I don’t typically target fluency as a goal. Working on decreasing struggle and allowing the client to define what speaking easier/more freely means to them. There are times where a client feels that working on strategies and monitoring their speech is worth the mental effort and we must honor that, but never impose that on our clients. Techniques are just that, techniques. They are not a fix nor a cure and must NEVER be introduced to clients as something they have to do to achieve permanent fluency. Working on self-esteem, decreasing negative feelings by re-framing their thinking, and working on reducing shame and owning the space they’re in are good goals to target.