Supporting the Child who Stutters with Lucy Reed, SLP
Watch this informative episode to discover ways to encourage and support children who may feel overwhelmed and helpless because of stuttering. Join Lindsey and Lucy, and see why it is important for all parents, teachers, student and SLPs to be aware of the challenges and emotional tolls stuttering can have on children, and how we can make a difference.
Lindsey:
Good morning Facebook. How’s everybody doing today? I am so excited to be here. I am your host, Lindsey Kucich, the lead mental health therapist for Global Teletherapy and I’m very excited for today’s show. Before we get started with today’s show, drop a comment, tell me where you’re watching from. Use the #teamlive or if you’re watching the replay #teamreplay. Awesome. Also, oh my goodness, I’m not sure where all of the feedback is coming from. I apologize. How’s that sound going? Everybody good? Hi you guys, thanks for commenting. Oh my gosh, I’m seeing all of you. Wonderful, say hello.
Lindsey:
All right. I think I fixed my feedback issue. Sometimes, this technology just gets in our way. All right, so I want to check in with everybody. Drop a line, tell me where you’re coming from, where you’re watching from, how are you guys doing during this fabulous stay at home order. Don’t worry. We’re still working to keep everything up and running and helping our students. So we do have a great show for you today. Also, I want to know how our #BeKindFIRST movement is spreading. Tell me in the comments how you’ve been participating. With our stay at home orders, it may be a little harder to find ways to be kind first in the communities, so practice at home with your family or call your friends to check in. Extroverts, we are not okay. I’m telling you, if you are an introvert, please be kind first and reach out to your extrovert friends, we’re all struggling very much with the social distancing. I am one of them, if you cannot tell. But I’m actually doing okay. Thanks for asking.
Lindsey:
All right. Also Global Teletherapy launched their free webinars. Again, this is a great resource for families and students. You want to check this out and then you want to share this with as many people as possible. Go to www.globalteletherapy.com to sign up and encourage everyone to sign up. It’s open to families and children. Share this with maybe your school administrators as well so that way they can help promote it to their families. Share with other therapists to great webinar that talks about a lot of different topics, especially if you have a senior or know of a senior and their senior year has now been canceled. We’ve got a great topic to discuss that. And then since we’ve all been cooped up in the house and you need some cabin fever tricks to get kids moving because they’ve got all this extra energy; another great webinar for that as well. So you definitely want to take a look at that. Again, that’s on our website, www.globalteletherapy.com
Lindsey:
Hi everybody that’s been tuning in. I’m so excited to have our guests and introduce our guest today. This is a great topic and as a school psychologist I know very little about, so I am excited to have Lucy Reed join us. Lucy has 17 years of experience as a speech and language pathologist. She’s been with Global Teletherapy for three years. She is a speech and language pathologist who has her own personal experience with stuttering. She’s based in Alabama. Lucy and her husband are active participants in the stuttering community and are the founders and leaders of the Coastal Alabama Chapter of the National Stuttering Association. Lucy is an expert in the world of fluency and is here today to show us some wonderful resources and share with us her knowledge in this field and with this topic. So Lucy, thank you so much for being with us today.
Lucy:
It’s a pleasure to be here Lindsey, thank you for inviting me.
Lindsey:
I am excited about this topic. I hear it come up often in our world of special education and not a lot of therapists are comfortable with treating a student who stutters, so it falls in one of those love it or hate it categories. Why do you think that is?
Lucy:
Well, I think the reason is that a lot of speech therapists don’t know a lot about stuttering and aren’t confident treating it. Many graduate programs don’t teach… Don’t have required courses on stuttering. Oftentimes the courses that they have are electives and oftentimes what they teach are just courses that teach just the techniques, just the strategies. And if there isn’t a professor on the faculty who is really trained or does research into going beyond that, into the cognitive part and trains the students in that aspect, then the students come out not knowing how to treat it and because it’s difficult treating if you treat just the strategies side of it.
Lindsey:
Gotcha. It sounds like it’s very complex. I would see why this would definitely require additional training. While SLPs are going through their grad school program, if it’s not that they really absolutely fall in love with and continue with those continuing education units, they’re not going to be as comfortable working with these students.
Lucy:
Right.
Lindsey:
So that’s important to know that that professional development is required to work with students that need that assistance. You agree with that?
Lucy:
Yes, definitely. And there are… The Stuttering Foundation offers a lot of CEU training and Scott Yaruss has the Stuttering Therapy Resources. He offers a lot of free videos where he teaches training. Both of those are very… We’ll get to their websites later, they offer a lot of really hands on teaching you how to treat videos.
Lindsey:
Great. And yes, resources are definitely going to be something I know our therapists would want to get their hands on and know where to go because sometimes just they might not be an expert in it now, doesn’t mean they won’t want to be.
Lucy:
Right.
Lindsey:
All the therapists that are watching, all you SLPs put in the comments. Let me know if you have a student on your caseload that you are working with in regards to fluency or is that something that you really want to gain more information on. Put that in the comments. I want to know and see how many students this really is affecting because there are some high numbers with that. So Lucy, when working with a child who stutters, what is the big picture message that you like to send?
Lucy:
The big picture message is making sure the child knows, and you have to tell them this, don’t assume, the child has to be told that it is okay to stutter, that they are not doing anything wrong when they stutter, that it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It is not their fault because if you don’t tell them this, they bring it on themselves to build up fear and shame and guilt. And when they do this, they begin to fight and struggle with their stuttering and this will perpetuate it.
Lindsey:
That’s great. A great message. I think everybody does need to know that it’s okay to stutter. It’s okay to have any disability and really understand people with a disability are not broken. There is nothing that needs to be fixed. I don’t stutter, but I do have dyslexia and those that know and understand that you don’t grow out of dyslexia. It is lifelong. There are struggles and it does affect a lot of different aspects, but it’s okay and just like it’s okay to stutter and we want everybody to be okay with who they are.
Lucy:
Right.
Lindsey:
But there’s probably going to be some strategies that we want to teach and we want to help students learn so that it doesn’t always have to be a struggle.
Lucy:
Exactly.
Lindsey:
One of the things when doing therapy in the virtual setting versus the traditional setting, is it easier to do it in the virtual setting or is it harder. If it is easier, what makes it easier?
Lucy:
Well the one big advantage with the virtual setting over the school based setting is that in the virtual setting you have the parent there. And especially with the younger ones… Well really with all the school age kids, the parent is a vital component in stuttering therapy because the parent is where the child gets their message. And I mean lots of times I hear the kids telling me that their parent tells them not to stutter, to stop stuttering. This one little girl told me that her father would hit her when she stuttered, so this is what… And even when the parent doesn’t say anything, kids pick up on body language and they then put it upon themselves. They feel that what they’re doing is wrong. I did this as a kid, no one told me not to stutter, but my own mother stuttered and nobody ever talked about it with me.
Lucy:
I put it upon myself that what I was doing was bad and shameful. And when the kid does this, when no one talks about it with them, when no one tells them it’s okay, they put it upon themselves to think that it’s bad and shameful and they fight it and they struggle with it. You can’t fight with yourself and win. When they fight it, they perpetuate it. So the parent has to tell the kid it’s okay, acknowledge it, talk about it.
Lucy:
Stuttering has to become a discussable topic. The parent has to learn to talk about it with the kid at home, slow the pace of household down, not ask the kid direct questions. This is when they’re little, rather than asking the kid, what did you have for lunch? Maybe say, “I had a chicken sandwich for lunch,” and then give the kid time to talk on his own. You’re reducing what we call demand speech. Give the kid time to talk without demanding speech, give the kid time to talk at the dinner table without siblings butting in. Getting teachers on board with it. There are pamphlets, we can share them later. Notes to teachers, notes to parents from the National Stuttering Association, from the Stuttering Foundation with all these tips so the child gets the idea that stuttering is okay.
Lucy:
In therapy it depends on the child. You first begin with having them know this, you start out with teaching them the strategies of slow, easy speech. Then as they get older, there are different strategies that are all spelled out in when you get into the different schools, there are the general onsets, the continuous phonations, that’s all part of the fluency shaping. And then we can get into stuttering modification techniques. The fluency shaping teaches the child how to speak without stuttering and that is what is generally taught and they can be very successful very, very quickly in the speech room or over teletherapy.
Lindsey:
Excellent. I want to circle around to a couple other things that you mentioned.
Lucy:
Yes.
Lindsey:
Of course. Getting that parent involvement, huge.
Lucy:
Yes.
Lindsey:
Right now, seeing how our current state is requiring everybody really to learn this distance learning-
Lucy:
Right.
Lindsey:
… a lot of therapists are doing this online platform and I want them to realize, utilize the parent. I hear you saying that the parent involvement is key and teaching-
Lucy:
Right.
Lindsey:
… strategies to the parent. It’s not just about the student that needs the strategy, but everybody working with the student in addition, address the elephant in the room-
Lucy:
Yes.
Lindsey:
… a student that stutters, you’re going to know. We don’t want to ignore that, but let them know it’s okay. And then working with that student and understanding just move through it and don’t try to force yourself to stop. That’s what I heard you say, it’s okay. And then learning those strategies, those are fantastic and never punish someone. Oh, that breaks my heart that this poor little girl got punished for it.
Lucy:
Oh, that father got a phone call that very same day.
Lindsey:
Oh my goodness. That just breaks my heart. Well, let’s talk about some of these myths. To a lot of people stuttering, it’s very unfamiliar and there are some common ways of thinking.
Lucy:
Right.
Lindsey:
What are the myths that you come about in reality that maybe we should be aware of? I know you’ve got a handout as well, so I’ll let you go over that piece.
Lucy:
Okay. Yeah. Some of the myths. Stuttering is linked to intelligence, there is no link whatsoever between stuttering and intelligence. Nervousness causes stuttering. Nervousness does not stuttering. Stuttering, research has shown that stuttering is caused by neurological differences in the brain. It is genetically transmitted. You cannot catch stuttering like it says here. Recent research indicates that a family history, neuromuscular development and the child’s environment. I believe as do a lot of people, research has shown the child is born with a predisposition through genetics.
Lucy:
Now the environment either brings it out or doesn’t bring it out. If the child is treated close to onset. Now, a lot of children will just as part of their natural learning to talk begin having disfluency and just get over it. A lot of children don’t, especially if there is stuttering in the family and the disfluency continues over a few months, that’s a red flag to have the child evaluated. If the child’s treated early, it may go away. But if not… Where was I going with this? What was your question, Lindsey? I’m so sorry.
Lindsey:
That’s okay. We’re just talking about these common myths.
Lucy:
The common myths, that’s right.
Lindsey:
I was so shocked by these myths and we will have this Handout available after the show. It will be on the hub-
Lucy:
Right.
Lindsey:
… that you can download. But one of them that I see on there that talks about it’s not really related to anxiety and don’t tell the person to think about what they want to say before saying it. And these are things that I have heard teachers do in the classroom or something along those lines that it’s very interesting that is not an appropriate approach.
Lucy:
Exactly. Right. The stuttering is not caused by anxiety. This is where I was going with it. It can be brought out by the environment and then if it’s treated it can just disappear. But otherwise it will continue and then treat it, it could be managed, the anxiety can arise from the stuttering and then we treat it with the behavioral… Changing the irrational thoughts.
Lindsey:
That makes sense to do a tag team approach in regards to that as well.
Lucy:
Yeah.
Lindsey:
So it becomes cyclical where the stuttering is the biological aspect of it. But then because everybody is staring now we have more anxiety and people don’t know what to do in that situation. Those that don’t stutter aren’t sure what techniques should be utilized-
Lucy:
Exactly.
Lindsey:
… and they might make it worse.
Lucy:
Yeah.
Lindsey:
… which definitely a lot of communication needs to happen on both ends. Not only does this child who stutter needs strategies, but those working with the child also need to have an awareness as to what they should do or what’s appropriate. And I really want to hone in on this myth that it is not linked to intelligence. That is huge.
Lucy:
No.
Lindsey:
I know a lot of people might feel like vocabulary and speech are indicators of intelligence, but when you’re working with a child who stutters, that is definitely not the case and that it’s really just that the biological piece of being able to speak with fluency. They are two separate things. Thank you so much for sharing that myth sheet. I really feel like that’s very helpful for some people to understand.
Lindsey:
I know one of our fabulous viewers are asking the question in regards to transitioning and generalizing from a speech section and into the… So you are in a speech session and then how do you transition that into the actual setting? In regards to… It kind of leads into the different strategies that you would implement to help the student reach their goals, because the goals that we set for students aren’t in isolation. They are to generalize. What kind of strategies can you implement in session to help the student reach their goals, to generalize these skills outside of session?
Lucy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, when you’re in a brick and mortar school, you can take the child to the cafeteria, to the office, give the child homework to go out to a store. When you’re doing virtual therapy, you can give the child homework to go to a store, to make phone calls the whole time you have to remind the child every time, it’s okay to stutter so go out and use your strategies. Now you have to give the child backups, so if with the fluency shaping isn’t working, then you get into the stuttering modification strategies. The bouncing, the pull-outs, they’ve got to be reminded that it’s okay to stutter. If they don’t feel comfortable stuttering in public, remind them you’re going to stutter anyway.
Lucy:
You’re the boss of your speech. Your speech doesn’t control you, you control it. Do you want to stutter hard or do you want to control your speeches that are easy? You tell them how to stutter easy. Instead of forcing it, let your speech come out. You don’t have to struggle with it. Let it come out easy. Stutter easy on it. And this is the way you get them to change their mindset about it. To change, the anxiety reduces.
Lucy:
And another thing is to get them with other kids who stutter. The National Stuttering Association, The Friends Who Stutter, both of them have conferences every year where they get together with other kids, but both of them have virtual meetings now. The Natural Stuttering Association has virtual Facebook groups for teens, for kids I believe 13 and up. They can get onto their sites, National Stuttering, there’s a sheet later, get onto the sites, kids can get on, talk to each other, email Each other, talk to each other on Facebook. When kids who stutter and adults who stutter get together and chat, wonderful things happen. Wonderful things happen in terms of generalizing their speech into real life.
Lindsey:
I think that’s a really important point that you’re bringing up. Having that-
Lucy:
It is so important. Magic happens, magic happens.
Lindsey:
Having that connection, that sense of community where you don’t feel like you’re alone in this definitely helps.
Lucy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Lindsey:
So I love that piece of it. Also, I really… What I take from what you were saying is that it’s almost like practice, practice makes perfect. You need to put the student in multiple settings. To answer that question is how do you generalize it? Well you just, you’d go from different place to different place and different place and we practice, practice, practice, all of these strategies and then in regards to… If you’re saying put students together, I’m curious, is it recommended that students participate in a speech group or is individual session better maybe in the beginning to learn those strategies or what do you recommend? Individual versus group?
Lucy:
I do both. I have kids individual, then I put them together. I show them videos of famous people who stutter so they can… We want them to gain courage by seeing other people who stutter doing things who stutter. Being successful while stuttering. I tell them, you can be anything you want to be and stutter while you do it. We want them to gain courage and know that they can… The goal is effective communication.
Lucy:
Oh, this is important. If stuttering’s okay, why do they come to speech? The first meeting we talk about how they feel. I give them the OASES, Scott Yaruss has it on the Stuttering Therapy Resource. It goes into how they feel. They will tell me that stuttering makes them feel frustrated and angry. They don’t feel good when they stutter. Bingo. That’s why they come to speech. They come to speech for me to help them not feel frustrated when they stutter.
Lucy:
They don’t come to speech because stuttering’s bad and we need to fix it. That’s the wrong message. There’s a fine line there. I don’t talk about fluency. Fluency is a bad word. Fluency gives them… For a lot of people, fluency is an unattainable goal. We don’t like that because people who stutter, for a lot of people who stutter that word fluency is a word that we don’t like because for a lot of people it’s an unattainable goal and it makes a person feel like a failure. I don’t talk about fluency with kids at all. That word never comes up. I tell them they come to speech to make their talking easier so that they don’t feel frustrated and they don’t get angry. That’s why they come to speech.
Lindsey:
That is huge. That is huge.
Lucy:
Huge, huge.
Lindsey:
You hit it on the head right there that understanding that, yes, it’s okay, but yeah, then they question, then why do I have to come to you? So having that-
Lucy:
So they feel better.
Lindsey:
So they feel better, not everybody else around them. I think that’s fantastic. Now you mentioned several different resources throughout our presentation and I really appreciate that. I want all of our viewers to know that we are going to have a list that will upload additional websites and resources that everyone should check out.
Lucy:
You’re right.
Lindsey:
Definitely great pieces. And Lucy, you’ve given us amazing amounts of information. Is there any last little bits of information-
Lucy:
Yes.
Lindsey:
… you’d like to give out before we go?
Lucy:
Yes. On the resources, the Stuttering Home Page, the link that’s on there, links the annual… I forget what it’s called. That links to just one part of it. Please just search stutteringhomepage.com, Judy Kuster maintains that. She’s maintained that for I don’t know how long, over 25, 30 years maybe. An unbelievable wealth of… Goldmine of information from Judy Kuster on stuttering. Just go to his stutteringhomepage.com, it’ll bring up the entire site.
Lindsey:
Wonderful. I will make sure we upload all of those resources at the end of the show-
Lucy:
Yes.
Lindsey:
… so everybody watching you’re going to have access. Lucy, thank you so much for being our guest today, sharing your personal story and really helping us understand how to work with not just children, but adults who stutter as well. So thank you so much for your time.
Lucy:
It has been a pleasure to be here Lindsey, thank you so much.
Lindsey:
All right everybody, all Facebook viewers thank you so much for tuning in today. I am very excited. We do have a show lined up for next week and since it’s OT month, we’re going to talk about some occupational therapy resources as well. In the meantime, do not forget to be kind first. We want to spread this movement, use our hashtag BeKindFIRST, share different ways that you’re finding to be kind first. So important, even with your family in the home, during the stay at home order, during your sessions with students or parents, checking in on all of your extroverted friends. We need help. No, we’re doing great, but I want to thank you all for tuning in today. Enjoy the rest of your day and we’ll see you next week.
