[ Contents ]
From: Jennifer Watson
Date: 10/13/03
Time: 1:32:42 PM
Remote Name: 138.237.132.184
Hi, Kerri- Thank you for raising the topic of working with adolescents. This is a unique and challenging group to work with and, I believe, requires some special consideration. I would encourage you to check out Trish Zebrowski’s 2002 article in Contemporary Issues in Communication Science and Disorders and Gordon Blood’s 1995 article in Language, Speech and Hearing Services in the Schools. Both of these reports shed some light on the special issues in working with this group. You might find some of Trish’s comments re. the teen’s mismatch between perception and reality helpful in understanding some of your clients’ comments. Re. your questions about whether SLPs should be counseling, I believe that we must counsel as we treat stuttering. Perhaps your questions stems from a different perception of counseling. I see counseling as a process by which we help our clients become more aware of themselves, including their feelings, beliefs and their actions. It also includes increasing one’s understanding of how these feelings, etc. affect one’s interactions with the world. Further, Luterman defines counseling as “a mutually educative process which allows for the exchange of both information and affect” (Luterman, 1991, p.5). He further describes the preferred counseling approach as one of listening and valuing. He describes our role as one where we help clients become congruent – combining intellectual (cognitive) abilities and emotions (affect) so that the person knows who he is. Through such awareness decisions can be made with greater ease. This role requires that we go beyond informer and persuader, two typical approaches that we often gravitate towards. Our counseling is based on establishing meaningful relationships with our clients. For more information about our role as counselor, please take a look at the following texts: Luterman (1991); Shames (2000); Rollin (2000), Gregory (2003) and Bloom and Cooperman (1999). All of these texts have some great info that might be helpful. Jennifer