Question
Hey there! Our names are Angelique Dominguez, Kayla Dewey, and Kristen DeJuilo. We are graduate SLP students at UofSC. We are currently taking a stuttering course within our program. As growing clinicians, it is important to receive insight from the individuals that we are treating. As a person who stutters, what advice could you provide for us to apply to our future clients? What has helped you accept your stutter and how has it changed your perspective on life?
Thank you in advance!
Hi Angelique, Kayla and Kristen,
Thank you for your thoughtful question.
As someone who only began speech therapy in adulthood what helped me was getting information about stuttering, as up until that point, I didn’t even want to know anything about stuttering. I think also having my misconceptions about stuttering challenged, like people who stutter shouldn’t be in jobs dealing with the public. Being shown how twisted thinking is not my friend in speaking situations, for example, believing I always stutter on certain sounds, when I tested that out and observed my own speaking, I found I only stuttered on those sounds sometimes – that helped reduce my fear of certain sounds. What I also found helpful was seeing stuttering in the context of my whole life and recognising that all the things I had in my life, like my husband and children, my family and friends, my work and my volunteering were not in any way devalued by my stuttering.
I also learned tools and techniques to help ease my struggle with my speech, and these were helpful, but the most important part of speech therapy for me was learning that as a person who stutters, my voice and my life are no less valuable than anyone else’s.
Best of luck with your studies.
Veronica
Upbringing, culture, society, religion, personality, all of these things play a part. So to know where to start, you will need to find out who and what we bring to the table. It might seem like the hardest part, but once you’ll get to know your client and s/he offers you the trust to open up, you’ll find a true connection with your client and can work together (as you have the tools, but the client is the expert on his/her own stutter). So I’d like SLPs to start by listening and to think out of the box. Listening, because stuttering is so much more than what you see and hear. Stuttering is in our minds, hearts and the rest of our bodies as well.
In my keynote speech for the ISA World Congress http://stutteringiscool.com/podcast/therapy-smorgasbord/ I spoke about stuttering treatment being a smorgasbord. 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.
So keep them talking
Anita