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From: John B. Ellis
Date: 21 Oct 2008
Time: 20:06:18 -0500
Remote Name: 75.71.16.152
I concur that, for some who stutter, electronic aids such as the Edinburgh Masker or SpeechEasy can serve as a launching mechanism to help reach new levels of performance. In particular cases, such devices may provide that unique boost to reach realms of possibility where other offerings by themselves had failed. Once in orbit, so to speak, it is not unreasonable to expect that these changes could be stabilized and the original catalyst (i.e., AAF) discarded. As such, a relevant research question would be to study whether AAF could be used for some period of time and subsquently withdrawn with long-term success afterwards. The SpeechEasy could provide an acceptable form of AAF during the study. Any post-AAF improvements would not represent direct carryover of AAF per se, for the AAF would have merely served to make some aspects of traditional therapy (e.g., confronting avoidances, challenging certain beliefs, etc.) palatable by temporarily improving fluency until independent mastery could be achieved.