Therapy Of Stuttering

Malcolm Fraser knew from personal experience what the person who stutters is up against. His introduction to stuttering corrective procedures first came at the age of fifteen under the direction of Frederick Martin, M.D., who at that time was Superintendent of Speech Correction for the New York City schools. A few years later, he worked with J. Stanley Smith, L.L.D., a stutterer and philanthropist, who, for altruistic reasons, founded the Kingsley Clubs in Philadelphia and New York that were named after the English author, Charles Kingsley, who also stuttered. The Kingsley Clubs were small groups of adult stutterers who met one night a week to try out treatment ideas then in effect. In fact, they were actually practicing group therapy as they talked about their experiences and exchanged ideas. This exchange gave each of the members a better understanding of the problem. The founder often led the discussions at both clubs. In 1928 Malcolm Fraser joined his older brother Carlyle who founded the NAPA-Genuine Parts Company that year in Atlanta, Georgia. He became an important leader in the company and was particularly outstanding in training others for leadership roles. In 1947, with a successful career under way, he founded the Stuttering Foundation of America. In subsequent years, he added generously to the endowment so that at the present time, endowment income covers over fifty percent of the operating budget. In 1984, Malcolm Fraser received the fourth annual National Council on Communicative Disorders' Distinguished Service Award. The NCCD, a council of 32 national organizations, recognized the Foundation's efforts in "adding to stutterers', parents', clinicians', and the public's awareness and ability to deal constructively with stuttering." Book jacket.

*HA18, Stuttering Therapy: An Integrated Approach to Theory and Practice, Richard Culatta(Appalachain State University), Stanley Goldberg(San Francisco State University), U1647-9, 480 pp., 7 1/4 x 9 1/4, 0-023-26311-3, casebound, 1995, $39.00nk, October*/This book provides a comprehensive look at defining, measuring, and treating stuttering. It discusses basic concepts on which therapy is based and examines the process of diagnosis. The main portion of the book is devoted to therapy. Intervention programs are summarized and compared through the use of a unique methodology that clearly identifies attitudes and behaviors to be treated.

This book is a clinical resource for speech-language pathologists who work with school-age children who stutter. It provides comprehensive assessment and intervention strategies designed to enhance positive therapy outcomes.

This book provides the reader explicit descriptions of therapy procedures and the necessary rationale for these procedures based on research and clinical experience. This comprehensive book begins with basic background information about speech fluency and the nature of stuttering. It is unique among books on stuttering therapy in that it includes a chapter providing analyses of eight areas of research, followed immediately by the implications of these findings for evaluation and treatment. Five chapters on assessment and treatment of all age groups carry out a main theme of relating research knowledge to clinical procedures. A final chapter focuses on a reframing of the processes of counseling and stuttering therapy. Speech language pathologists and anyone interested in communication disorders.

The author presents a new approach to the therapy of stuttering. Instead of accepting stuttering and trying to make it more fluent, he prefers to motivate a patient to effectively battle the condition. This book presents a theoretical basis for such an approach and offers diagnostic tools, including normalised and standardised scales as well as questionnaires for examining patients with stuttering in different age groups. While guest authors review research on the effects of pharmacotherapy, which is regarded as controversial by many, the author focuses on discussing the approach and achievements of Central and Eastern European therapists which have not been heard of in the USA and Western European countries. He supports systemic therapy which affects all the basic stuttering factors (ie: speech disfluency, logophobia, muscle tension and interpersonal communication in a comprehensive way). Speech disfluency is not regarded as a problem, but merely as an obstacle on the way to accomplish a patients personal goals. The author presents particular methods for solving the problems of patients with stuttering and considers motivation to therapy important, though it is reduced due to the acceptance of the disorder. Although he supports using natural speech in the course of therapy, he does not reject other techniques. On the contrary, the author believes that therapeutic methods should be adjusted to the needs and abilities of a patient instead of forcing said patient to use a method simply because it is universal. The author believes therapies are subjective to the patient in question. Additionally, the author is optimistic and encourages both therapists and patients to share his optimism as well.

Presents a comprehensive stuttering therapy. Together this book/video package allows clinicians to read descriptions of stuttering therapy and then view the discussed techniques on videotape examples of actual therapy being conducted. The skills for teaching fluency are broken down into a number of easy-to-follow components. Each component is also demonstrated and discussed on the video. The author emphasizes the need to consider not only the client's speech skills, but also consider the client's emotional perspectives associated with stuttering.

This publication has articles written by men and women who stutter themselves and who are now or have been speech pathologists.