Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Fluency

I picked up my "American Speech,-Languagel-Hearing Association" magazine, "The ASHA Leader" back in October when I took a flight to Idaho for my grandmother's funeral. I really got caught up in a story that generated more readers' responses than I've ever seen for this magazine.

The story was written by a man who has a lifelong stuttering problem. He talks about how it felt to have a "block" in his words. He described, with great analogies, what helped him as he got older.

Please take a look:  http://www.asha.org/Publications/leader/2012/120918/Walled-Off--Stuttering-in-the-Family.htm

The number of responses I saw from this column was remarkable (16!). I love how "human" this article's approach was, without theories and definitions, just human, real-life experiences.

I was drawn back to this article this month when I read another "readers respond" message talking about how clinicians have to master statistics (not the class "Statistics" but the idea of knowing all the percentages and prognosis/diagnosis for problems) rather than having a knowledge of counseling a patient. This really goes back to my feeling that if I can't figure out how to develop a true rapport with an individual, I won't be able to help him or her overcome anything.

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