Hello Professionals,
My peers (Victoria, Katlyn) and I (Emily), are pursing graduate careers in Speech-Language Pathology. As we pursue this career we are wondering how you implement stuttering therapy on a family who may have different views and beliefs than you on stuttering and stuttering therapy. How do you go about creating a beneficial therapy environment?
Hi Victoria, Katlyn, and Emily! While that’s a broad question since it’s unclear what the differing views and beliefs are, I would say most of the time when there are differing views or expectations, it’s generally because parents are misinformed about causes (e.g., not understanding there are neurophysiological and/or genetic underpinnings) or they’re holding to myths about stuttering. I usually begin with educating families about what stuttering is and what stuttering is not, and bringing awareness to debunk myths, and this often helps to alleviate fears, blame, guilt, and unrealistic expectations.