Question for Professionals
Hello! My name is Haley and I am a speech-language pathology graduate student. We recently read an article by Victoria Wiggins about raising a child who stutters/stammers. She mentions that while parental acceptance and support plays a vital role, her child took charge of his speech therapy and was empowered by the experience. With this in mind, how do we as clinicians find the balance between familial involvement/counseling in therapy, while also ensuring our client who stutters is at the center of our intervention?
Hi Haley!
I would like to know more. How old was this child? Were there any other family members (other than the mother) involved in therapy? Did they serve as barriers or facilitators?
My questions would also tell you that this profile would be very different for each child.
The degree if involvement of the family and the extended family, whether their involvement is an asset or a liability for the PWS, these are important variables to help you find the ‘balance’ you mention in your question.
As the child grows older, again depending on the cognitive capability and emotional maturity, the amount of agency given to the child / adolescent would, or rather should, increase. New enviromental variables that enter the scene need to be acknowledged, and either roped in as facilitators or dealt with if they are barriers.
The idea then , is not just to strike a balance, but to keep changing it dynamically with time. Note that whether agency is more in the hands of the parent (for a very young child) or with the child, the center of intervention will, always be the person who stutters. If this balance is checked and sought at multiple points in time, the end result will always be empowerment of the PWS.
Pallavi