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| Image courtesy of Sierra Mountain Center |
One member noticed that the manager at a store he frequents stuttered. Instead of taking the easy way out and not saying anything, he reached out. He shared information about the NSA and support group meetings in the area. He planted a seed that one day might grow into something unexpected.
Another group member found himself, after a tiring out-of-state drive, standing in front of fifteen people and being asked to introduce himself. He didn't let the hurry and surprise get to him but took control of the situation, set his own pace for speaking, and made his way fluently and easily through the whole process.
Another member shared with his family, for the first time, the challenges that he's been facing and trying to work through in his speech. It takes a great deal of courage to break the silence in this way. Honesty is sometimes painful. The fear that by being honest you're letting your loved ones down in some way can be overwhelming. But people who truly care about you will support you through the awkwardness and discomfort, and appreciate you all the more for trusting them enough to open up.
We also had a lively conversation about pills used to treat stuttering. While acknowledging that in some cases pills might offer some relief, none of us thinks they're a good idea in the long run. They treat stuttering as a chemical imbalance in the brain and give short shrift to the emotional and intellectual aspects of our speech. Those of us who've had long-term success dealing with stuttering can attest that it has taken a great deal of effort to examine our attitudes, habits and personalities and understand how we work so that the changes we made in our speech are constructive and profound.
To use a group member's analogy, we've walked in the valley and reached the peak, then descended back down and made our way back up again and again. We know there's no quick fix, just each day with its challenges and victories, big and small.
We talked a little about the grad students from Cal State Fullerton who often attend our group. These same students also often attend the Riverside group & the North Orange County group. We talked about just how much, if anything, these students add to our group. I think they get more from us than we do from them. One member of our group mentioned that we never get back the results of various forms we fill out for the students. They attend our group at the direction of Dr. Tsao, the department head, to get course credits. They're not coming out of their own free will. Cal State Fullerton's speech department doesn't have a specialty in stuttering. The students there
ReplyDeletecan take one undergrad course & one grad course in I believe what is called "Fluency Disorders", & these may be electives. So, most or all of them are not going to go on to be SLPs focusing on stuttering. I've always had mixed feelings about the students attending NSA groups. They're friendly & pleasant enough, but the groups don't really flow the same as when they're not there. I don't feel as "natural" as I do when they're not there. If we're going to keep allowing them to attend our groups, we should try as much as possible to conduct the groups as if they weren't there. The students should be neutral observers & not participate in our activities. Taking time at the end of a group to field their questions may be of some value as far as educating them for possible use in their careers, but even this takes away from our time at the meetings. Again, most or none of them will become SLP's who treat stutterers exclusively, although they may encounter stutterers at times. I don't think that a planned activity of a group should ever be cancelled or cut short for the sake of the students. The suggestion was made that we hold an extra meeting (each month?) with just the students in mind. This at first sounded like a good idea to me, but on second thought I don't think it would work. It's tough enough already to get enough members to come to our regular meetings. If there were another meeting just to accommodate the students, the turnout would be very low. Also, it could reduce the turnout at our regular meetings - who can go to 3 meetings a month? I suggest we allow the students to come to ONE of our meetings each of their semesters. This would come to two meetings a year. Either that or just not have come at all.
The last sentence of the above comment should have read: "Either that or just not have them come at all".
ReplyDeleteNo meeting on Halloween? I was going to come dressed as a person who doesn't stutter.
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