Speech and language therapy: what young people really think
By Cherry Hughes, BSA education officer

During the past 18 months, I have been working with children and teenagers who stammer for our project to produce CD ROMs for teachers and for students preparing for the oral component of GCSE English. Altogether, 32 children and young people have taken part in these productions; 13 of whom stammer and were filmed either talking to camera about their concerns, or in a classroom situation. All of these young people were receiving therapy in different areas of the country and it was interesting to hear about the common features of their experiences.

What was so pleasing to hear, as they talked, was their regard for their therapists and their experiences of therapy. From the youngest child of seven to the oldest of 16, with most of them in the 10-14 age group, their experiences of therapy had been very positive. Only four of the group were girls: aged seven, 10, 12 and 16 respectively. That proportion probably reflects average figures for the incidence of stammering in boys and girls. All the girls confronted their speech difficulty, and did not seem to be avoiding in any way at all. They seemed to be happy and balanced in their attitude to school, related well to their teachers, and got on well with other pupils. Each one of the three talked about going to their teachers if they had a problem and seemed to have high expectations that any problem would be dealt with.

They appeared confident and prepared to communicate their ideas and thoughts, with aspirations that seemed to be appropriate to their ability, and were not constrained by their stammer. Each one of them felt that they had benefited from their therapist visiting the school, and the 12 year old explained how her mother had said that she wished she had had the same opportunities for therapy when she stammered severely as a child. I spoke to the mothers of all the girls and was impressed by the way their comments supported those of their daughters. Again, all the mothers emphasised how much they appreciated what therapy had done for their children's self esteem. They particularly valued the link between the home, the therapist and the school.

The nine boys were aged from 11 to 16, with the majority between 13 and 16. To my surprise, as I knew that boys of this age were often reluctant to access therapy, they were all involved in some way: either through regular sessions at the clinic or intensive courses during the school holidays. Two of them, aged 12 and 16, were the key players in the filming and spoke frequently to camera. Both of them did on occasion stammer quite severely but were not prevented from talking as they wished. They were quite loquacious about how they tried to take their therapist's advice and confront their speech difficulty, and any situations, without allowing their stammer to hold them back.

All the young people gave their views on how they should be involved in any discussion with their teacher about strategies that they found helpful. Even the seven year old had firm views on this; she explained how she had gone to her teacher about taking part in her class play by reading aloud with another child. The older pupils of 16, a girl and a boy, both emphasised that while preparing for the GCSE oral work in English they had developed a good relationship with their teacher. Both students had worked out with their teacher how to approach their oral work, in what the boy described as a "step by step" approach. The girl had completed her GCSE and had received a good grade for her oral assignments even though, as she said, she had stammered severely when completing them. I think that now the exam boards are encouraging teachers to assess communication skills in these assessments, and this is a positive development for our teenagers.

All of the children and young people wanted all their teachers to know that they did stammer. One eleven year old boy recounted amusingly that if he got into trouble and was told off by a teacher, he did not want to risk being thought of as rude when he had already been caught out, as his stammer might make him slower in answering. As all his teachers knew he stammered, they waited for him to talk in his own time.

I was very impressed by the easy relationships that I observed between the young people and their therapists, and with the mothers of the three girls and one boy whom I met. There seemed to me to be a lot of trust between all of them from which the young people obviously benefited.

Obviously, it is impossible to draw conclusions in any formal fashion about the attitude of young people and my impressions are totally anecdotal. However, I think they have some value as they were drawn from a group of children of both sexes in different parts of the country receiving therapy from a varied group of professionals. Without exception, these young clients of the speech and language therapy service talked quite movingly in the most positive terms about their experiences of therapy, and how much they had been helped. I think many teachers would be delighted to receive such spontaneous accolades, anecdotal or not.

The support of the mothers, for what would formally be described as collaborative practice, was also heartening to hear. They were fortunate that in their Health Trust the child had been visited in the primary school classroom and in the secondary school the therapist was able to make at least one visit.

I had to conclude that, from where I was observing, the speech and language therapists involved were getting it totally right.

From the Spring 2003 edition of Speaking Out

See also:
Our Education Officer - on Cherry's schools CD-ROM project.