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From: Russ Hicks
Date: 22 Oct 2004
Time: 11:30:43 -0500
Remote Name: 24.1.53.111
Hi Brook, ------- You asked, "I am curious as to how best to impress this idea upon a child who stutters." Boy howdy, I wish I knew! How do you teach a child that a stove is hot? Painful as it is, experience is the best teacher! (Ouch!) You can scream "Don't touch that, Tommy! It's hot!" all you want, but little Tommy isn't going to believe you until he feels the pain of the blisters on his fingers. Then he's never gonna forget it! It may be of little satisfaction for you to say "See? I told you so." but that's just the way we learn. If you come up with a better answer to that question, please let me know! <grin> ------- You also asked, "Did you receive therapy as a child?" Yes, but it was lousy. It was an early form of fluency shaping and did nothing for me except enlarge the underside of my stuttering iceberg. Nobody had a clue about the iceberg in those days. See my paper at http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/isad6/papers/hicks6.html for details of this. It really wasn't anybody's fault. We just didn't know. But now YOU do. So go forth and do good... ------- Then you asked, "If so, would hearing this message from a therapist have been helpful to you?" That's a good question. The best answer is probably not. I'm not any smarter than the next guy, so I probably wouldn't have believed her. (What do you mean that nobody cares about my stuttering? OF COURSE THEY DO! Don't be an idiot!) And I've got blisters on my fingers to prove my ignorance... ------- But like any parent - or any SLP - you've gotta try! And years from now, you'll at least have the satisfaction of saying "See? I told you so..." ------- Good luck! ------- Russ, RussHicks@mail.com, Dallas, Texas, 972-881-1451 home, 972-489-6169 cell, My home page: http://www.RussHicks.com NSA home page: http://www.WeStutter.org