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From: Patty Walton
Date: 20 Oct 2008
Time: 20:22:40 -0500
Remote Name: 71.218.97.38
Denial is a certainly a challenge with kids who stutter. I think it is important to these kids alot of time to talk about their feelings. We need to explore why they are not embracing their problme and wanting to get better. Some kids really do not care, and that is okay! We do not want to put a kid in hterpay who is not committed to making a change. But for those kids who are really hurting and cannot face the pain and fear they experience from stuttering, we need to be supportive and understanding and counsel these kids early on without focusing too much on speech change. If there are not other kids around who stutter I would suggest getting videos or having the child interact with another child who stutters. With the internet, this can be easy. Friends has a great mentoring program for kids and the stutteringhomepage has wonderful resources. With counseling, our hope is to help the child seperate themselves from their stuttering to see that stutteirng is not who they are but rather something they do. Understanding stuttering through education and learning about all the things they are doing when they stutter, as well as what they are doing that is compromising fluency...you can bring them closer to wanting to work on it. For these school age kids and teenagers, sometimes relationships with parents may feed the shame they feel and then we need to work on parental attitudes and beliefs. I rarely see denial in a young child, and I work with 50-60 preschoolers a year. Hope this helps!