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From: Judy Butler
Date: 08 Oct 2004
Time: 06:04:18 -0500
Remote Name: 68.239.4.110
Dear Kay, Thank you for this paper. I plan to draw this model with kids using many colored markers. I can also see this model translated into a variety of pictoral representations: points on a the side of a mountain to be climbed, games to be won on the way to a championship series, piano pieces to be practiced but then performed in front of family, then guests, then small school recital and then ..... I see this model as an opportunity to write down what a child's future goals might be. My question is about a child's level of self-awareness. 1. At the preschool level, adults (including myself) are anxious about when and how to take speech issues and move them from the level of information to awkwardness. It seems to me that this is the transition in which people are afraid of creating a problem...bringing to a child's awareness something that adults' judge to be a problem. 2. Yesterday I spoke with a parent who is just about ready to do a presentation about stuttering to her son's class. She is just about ready because she knows what to do, her son asked her to do it, but she is terrified of "making a big deal" out of stuttering. She is feeling very awkward. 3. Unless the father is a PWS, mothers tend to tell me their child has a problem while fathers minimize. It's all in the perception. Who's perception is the "right" one? I understand that a child can't fix a problem until s/he knows what it is. One clinician I've spoken with suggests allowing a child/teen to experience failure so that s/he can become aware of a need for change. Parents' worry about their child's future, want to work on issues but their kids are innocent and don't understand they need to prepare themselves for the challanges of life. When is a child ready to move from information to awkwardness? How do you make decisions about when/how to move from one level to the next? Do you work on all 4 contexts (clinic, home, school, world) at the same time - or - do you work through all 4 steps in the clinic, then work through al 4 steps at home, then work through all 4 steps at school.....What else do you recommend I read on this topic? Thank you, Judy