future SLPs
Hi there! This is Kelly and Meredith and we are in our second year of school to be SLP’s. We were curious if you have ever received therapy from an SLP before? If so, what did you like and dislike about it/would you recommend it to others? And, as future SLP’s, we would like to know what you think is the most important thing for us to know/advice you may have for us when we work with people who stutter.
I think the most important thing for SLPs who work with PWS is recognize that the person who stutters knows a lot about stuttering, because of the “lived experience.” Try not to come off as an expert. The ideal is for both therapist and client to work together and learn from each other.
I learned a lot in my brief stint with therapy. You can read about that in a paper I wrote for this conference over 10 years ago, “Things I Learned in Therapy.”
Here is the link.
http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/isad12/papers/mertz122.html
Pam
Hello,
I totally agree with Pam. The most important is to understand the person who stutters, his/her personnality and his/her needs.
For 10 years, my first SLP copy-pasted techniques. I was 18, and unable to say “Hello, my name is Mounah”
At 21, I went to an SLP who adapted all she knew to my need and my personality. It changed my life.
to sum up :
– Dislike : Technique not adapted, No interests on my needs and my feelings
– Like : Empathy, creation of a link, adaptation to my need and my personality
Best,
Mounah
Stuttering was such a taboo, therapy was never an option as a child. And today I’m happy where I am, so not seeking therapy.
In my keynote speech for the ISA World Congress http://stutteringiscool.com/podcast/therapy-smorgasbord/ I spoke about just that. As PWS are such a huge variation of people, all with a different stutter, a different background, with different experiences AND with different wants and needs, there is no one therapy for all. One might want fluency, another might want confidence, the third might want public speaking skills, the fourth might simply want relaxation. A multi-disciplinary approach, with not just clinicians, but also using yoga, song, mindfulness and massage might do the trick. Just like going to the gym is not for all. Sometimes the tools aren’t right, sometimes the clinician/trainer, sometimes the time isn’t right. So by listening to the client and, together with the client, find a smorgasbord of activities to pick from, and maybe invite a friend to the therapy room to help your client with the challenges and exercises outside the therapy room might be the key. (Just as it’s more fun to do tough things together with a friend.) So, give the client a smorgasbord, explain the different “dishes” and let the client pick and choose and give it a try. It’s the combination of “flavors” that can make the perfect “dish”. Being in this “kitchen” together, client and clinician, makes a team and can maybe create new “dishes”, instead of a teacher-student situation where one simply does what he is told, leaving the room with a sigh of relief. And what is more rewarding than for a client to feel proud and wanting to keep on expending comfort zones and new speaking levels, and for the clinician to watch and cheer the client, you’ve been coaching, reaching new levels. The books need to be rewritten, from counting stuttered syllables, risking to silence the client, to counting life successes, as that’s what really matters.
Stay safe and keep them talking
Anita
Yes I have been helped by speech therapy but it was not conducted by an SLP. It was a 3 week intensive that was conducted by a psychologist who applied a psychological approach to using behaviour changing techniques that SLPs try to use with their clients these days. It is called Smooth Speech (like prolonged speech) but it needs to be taught in a very intensive manner or the expected results will not be there. The treatment of adult stuttering is a very specialised area. It is very hard for an SLP to get meaningful results for their client if the client just visits them once per week for many weeks. Gains made in the clinic are quickly eroded away when the client returns to the “real world”. The intensive course I did were 10 – 12 hour days and the generalist SLP is not set up to do that sort of intervention. Effective treatment of adolescent and adult stuttering is best left to specialists with a great deal of experience in treating stuttering I believe.