Hello,
Thank you for being a part of this forum! We are graduate clinicians at the University of South Carolina. In studying to work with PWS, we want to know how to make sure PWS are getting the most out of therapy. In your experience, what qualities of a clinician have enhanced or detracted from your therapy experience and progress?
Thank you,
Briemma, Anna, and Samantha
Hello Briemma, Anna, and Samantha
Top qualities :
– Empathy
– Knowledge of stuttering
– Openess to the knowledge of the person who stutters (The patient knows his needs, it is important to listen to her/him)
– Create a link with the person who stutters
Worst :
– All the behaviours that impact negatively the top qualities
It is important that you know how to treat adolescent and adult stuttering. If you don’t believe you have the skills and the experience to help the client then refer the client on to a stuttering treatment specialist or a psychologist who you believe may have the skills. If you have the skills then be hard on the client. As you will already know chronic stuttering is a hard beast to tackle so the client will need you to be hard on him/her. But is your client going to benefit from stuttering treatment? Is he/she going to suit and embrace what you plan to get him/her to do to change their speaking and THINKING behaviour.
Hi Briemma, Anna, and Samantha
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
As an SLP you will in your career come across people who will come to you with all forms of dysfluency that they have self diagnosed as stuttering. You will need to be able to assess whether or not you have the skills to be able to help them. The therapy that was not so good was where the SLP really did not understand stuttering very well. She tried different things but was not able to help me. Then I attended a specialist intensive treatment program and I gained great benefit from that. So know your limitations in treating speech disorders, especially stuttering in adults that has as much of a psychological component to it as it does a speech component. This is not to deter you just to let you know that adult stuttering, unlike child (2 – 6 years old) is a specialised area that you ill need to have a lot of post graduate training in I believe.