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From: Ed Feuer
Date: 11 Oct 2008
Time: 22:13:01 -0500
Remote Name: 142.161.171.190
Tom, you raise some valid questions. In last year's ISAD online conference none of the professors chose to respond to my comment on distractor devices. I referred them then, as I do now, to to Charles Van Riper’s The Treatment of Stuttering and his chapter on Suggestion, Distraction, and Persuasion Therapies. Distractor devices, whether they're called the Amazing StutterMaster or whatever, have a long and sad history. Read what Van Riper said about the Derazne Correctophone, the Klein Auditory Masker, the "electronic ear," the Freed Stammercheck, Columbat's Muthonom, the Zond, Idehara's "Stuttering-curing Apparatus," Itard's "forks," and the Bates appliances. Talking in a foreign accent or in metronome speech (also distractors) is a lot cheaper and ultimately has the same temporary effect. That some SLPs choose to act as sales agents for distractor devices only serves to underscore the current miserable state of stuttering therapy. The crucial systematic desensitization, healing and strengthening with long-term efficacy are not achieved by most of what passes for stuttering therapy these days. Ditto for distractor devices. --edfeuer@mts.net