The appropriateness of speech therapy for children who stutter should not be a matter of getting “lucky” or “dodging a bullet.” Luckily for these parents, that was the case! Here’s their story:
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Our daughter is 11. She started stuttering when she was five. Like many parents who don’t stutter themselves but have a child who stutters, I just assumed it was about contacting a speech therapist like we did for our older son when he couldn’t say his r’s. We naturally went back to the same place. Prior to this, I had asked the school-based speech therapist for support, but she said they couldn’t help because it wasn’t affecting our daughter’s academics.
The speech therapist was lovely and my daughter loved going, but nothing ever changed her stutter. I was still in the mindset that she needed to be fixed. No one was speaking to me about my own attitude. We noticed that as our daughter got older, she talked less and her self-esteem seemed to be going down. The school finally approved an individualized education plan for her speech. This coincided with a new speech therapist taking over at the school. Most of our daughter’s previous therapy had focused on fixing her speech. This therapist had interned at an organization that focused on acceptance, avoidance reduction, empowerment, and confidence. In a very gentle way, she told us we needed to forget everything we thought about how to address our daughter’s stutter. We needed to address what was going on underneath. We connected with the organization and after one year, our daughter a different person.
The new therapist at this organization is a person who stutters. This means our daughter has a weekly meeting with someone who understands her completely. I also meet with him so I get this adult who knows what it’s like to stutter and who has this great ethos. The combination of him and the new school therapist completely changed the way I think. Shifting my attitude has been a tremendous help to her. I’m not making faces or going “please start again, slow down, etc.” I’m not doing any of that anymore.
Our daughter is a skating fiend – roller derby and now into speed skating. She’s very artistic and she loves baking. She also plays the flute. She’s just about to start middle school so we’re taking a big deep breath. She wants to get some pink in her hair. She’s wanting to make a bit of a splash. This is what we focus on these days.
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This mom went on to say, “we got lucky and dodged a bullet.” This may sound extreme, but we were not so lucky and did not “dodge that bullet.” After our son was subjected to therapy focused on fixing for most of his childhood, the outcome was silence, disengagement, and ironically, when he did talk, increased speech tension and secondary behaviors.
I am not naming the specific organization as I don’t want parents to feel that access to this approach to therapy is dependent on having access to that organization. It’s becoming increasingly common to find professional support who focus on acceptance, avoidance reduction, empowerment and self-confidence – INSTEAD of fixing (not in ADDITION to fixing). Parents deserve to be educated on these varying approaches and empowered to make discerning decisions around the type of therapy they feel is most appropriate for their child and their family.
Too often, the true experience of therapy is lost to parents in the acronyms, labels, and professional jargon. Conveying the essence of this approach through the first-hand experiences, I hope, is far more accessible and meaningful. Thank you to the 60+ parents and adults who have given of their time and hearts to share their first-hand experiences with childhood therapy for my next book project.
I also want students of speech therapy to be more receptive to this approach and to actively seek out information and training that encompasses a focus on acceptance, avoidance reduction, confidence-building, and good mental health. We need options like this to be far more available and not just a matter of “luck” or “dodging a bullet.” Our kids deserve better than that. Families deserve better than that.
Let’s keep our kids talking and joyfully engaged in the world around them.
Best,
Dori