Positivity and beneficial approaches
Hello My name is Dani, and I have enjoyed reading about everyone’s stories. I am a graduate student learning about fluency and love how supportive this area is and how everyone’s story is unique. My question for the panel is what do you find most beneficial when working with the fluency population and how does your perspective differ between age groups? Additionally, I was wondering if someone who experiences a fluency disorder if you would be able to give me insight on what has been most beneficial for you growing up and building confidence with communication.
Hello Dani
I suggest a reframing of the terms that you use.
Instead of learning about “fluency”, your college should be teaching you about stuttering. You will be working with the “stuttering” population, or, rather, with people who stutter and their families, not the “fluency population”.
Stuttering itself is not a disorder. We might develop disorders due to stigma, shame and the associated trauma. Disorders might include anxiety, and will most likely include the struggle response to the stigma of stuttering. The struggle changes “just stuttering” into so-called “severe” stuttering.
These clarifications are crucial if you wish to be a successful therapist to people who stutter. Your job is not to create fluency; it is to guide the PWS to being able to let go of shame and anxiety, to stop avoiding stuttering, and to “just stutter”. Then, the PWS will be free to live their lives.
If you have more questions, feel free to reach out for a deeper discussion.
Wishing you success in your studies and your career.
Hanan
Hi, Dani. Thank you for your interesting and important question!
My fluency disorder did not hold me back from communication as I was growing up. I realized from a very early age that not everyone had fluency of speech, and that people had different levels of abilities in different aspects of life.
Although I often had much difficulty in speaking (my stuttering is severe), I was looked up to and respected for skills and talents in areas other than speaking. I had strong academic abilities; I was a very early reader; I was playing piano and composing music from an early age; and I had mathematical abilities and memorization skills.
I realized that while most people around me had fluent speech and, unlike me, found the act of speaking to be easy, some people did have trouble speaking, similar to me. One of my father’s first cousins stutters, and when I was a little boy, she was a teenage girl – and I knew her well. Also, there was a girl in my elementary school class who stuttered, so I wasn’t the only one in my class who stuttered. My classmates were quick to learn – beginning in kindergarten or first grade – that some kids had trouble in speaking.
In school, I often had the answers to teachers’ questions, and was never afraid to give the answers. I also raised my hand a lot, and asked questions, if something the teacher was explaining wasn’t clear. My classmates and my teachers all knew that I spoke differently; everyone around me respected my knowledge and insight, and I never was afraid to stutter.
I built self-confidence from WHAT I was saying, and NOT from how I was saying it. My developed beliefs and attitudes were that different people had different areas in which they did very well, and other areas in which they didn’t have the same skills as others did. To me, this was natural, and not a big deal. I wax a different type of child in numerous ways – and I accepted that fact.
I had lots of speech therapy as a child (beginning at around age 4!), but it wasn’t helpful to me. The clinicians did not have any idea of how to treat my problem of severe stuttering. I realized that too from an early age, and I just accepted that I happened to be different. And that was that.
Best luck in your studies!
– Paul