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From: Charlie Healey
Date: 14 Oct 2008
Time: 20:09:19 -0500
Remote Name: 76.84.69.211
Glad my article was helpful for someone starting in the profession and being assigned a fluency client for the first time. I wish I would have had something like this when I was at your level. I think that what you have heard from the 22 year-old is common and it's about this age that clients become very motivated to work on their stuttering. It's also a time that large improvements can be made. So, don't let his previous failures in therapy deter what you think you need to do. Look at his stuttering from a multidimensional perspective and don't focus only on achieving more fluency. Help him learn what he is doing when he stutters, what is stopping the process of talking, explore what he understands, is aware of, how he feels, and how this affects his life. Give him some paper and pencil scales to complete like the Erickson S-24 scale and the OASES by Yaruss and Quesal. Those will be good starting points for discussions about how his stuttering impacts who he is and how he views his stuttering. After a period of therapy, give him the scales again and see where improvements or lack of improvements have been made. Best of luck with your work with this client.