The Young Stutterer

This video produced by the Australian Speak Easy Association, with Professor Gavin Andrews, gives the layman a very good idea of the disability and convinces him that treatment can be effective and that in young people who are sufficiently motivated fluency can be a realistic goal. We would recommend the tape to anyone who is interested in the subject whether it be a person who stammers, a relation or a speech therapist. By and large it is very interesting although we do not agree with all that is said.

Detection

This segment shows various symptoms of stammering discusses causation and talks about what stammering is and what it is not.

All of us who have worked with stammering for a long period of time are only too aware of how little we still know about its nature and its cause. Because we cannot be certain of things which pass our understanding we remain dubious of the person who gives the impression that he knows all the answers. We may admire Professor Gavin Andrews for his work with stammering, and his dedication to this disability, but enthusiasm is not a substitute for truth.

"Nobody", he says, "needs to grow up a stammerer". That is a most extraordinary statement! Would he care to prove it? We are well aware that children and young people frequently outgrow or overcome stammering, especially if given ideal circumstances; that is not at all the same as saying that nobody needs to grow up a stammerer.

We challenge as either unproved or misleading some of his other assertions. For example:
"Stammering is not caused by a fright"
"Parents do not cause children to stammer"
"Children do not copy stammering; you can't pick it up"
"Drawing attention to the stammer cannot make it worse"
These statements are misleading. Nobody knows the CAUSE of stammering, except for the fact that it runs in families, but it is believed that it can be TRIGGERED OFF by many experiences, including fright and picking it up. Parents do not CAUSE a stammer but can certainly prevent it from spontaneous recovery by their attitude towards it.

This first segment of the tape includes some very useful information to the layman and is excellently illustrated with children stammering. It describes stammering in school as an academic and social handicap and tells how children learn strategies to hide the disability in the class room by, for example, retreating from class participation. It also offers helpful suggestions for classroom teachers.

Treatment

The therapy demonstrated on the video is "smooth speech". "Smooth speech" is taught to adults, young people and school age children. It is not usually taught to pre-school children. The results are spectacular. Whether or not the clients shown are typical is not discussed but the implication is that anyone with motivation can achieve fluency. School children may overcome the problem entirely.

For pre-school children Professor Andrews wisely advocates early assessment by a speech therapist and treatment as soon as possible. We think he exaggerates in saying that the therapist will be able to tell whether or not the child will outgrow his/her stammer spontaneously and he assumes that if the stammer is mild it will not need treatment.

We are not at all happy about their treatment for pre-school children which involves the child, even as young as three years, in direct therapy (instead of counselling the parents or indirect therapy). This is what they say and this is what we would never do:
"Praise them for very good speech (i.e. fluency)"
"When the stammer occurs ask the child to slow down"
"Ask him to start the sentence again"
Some of the advice is good, such as:
"Slow down your own speech"
"Give the child time to talk"

Maintenance

The Australian Speak Easy Association has many branches and junior branches. It offers follow-up help to those who have had a course of speech therapy and who wish to maintain the fluency they have achieved.

In conclusion; the results of speech therapy for young people are so outstanding that we wonder whether they have been selected to show what is possible rather than what is typical. Much of the therapy for pre-school children is so misguided that we think the video should carry a government health warning saying, "This advice may damage your child's speech!"

Reviewed by Ann Irwin DipCST MSCT, Derry MacMahon, Polly Thomas, in the Autumn 1990 issue of 'Speaking Out' (when all three were Speech and Language Therapists in Newcastle upon Tyne - Webmaster).

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