{"id":7231,"date":"2011-11-10T09:17:42","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T16:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=7231"},"modified":"2016-06-07T13:33:17","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T20:33:17","slug":"more-than-words-therapy-also-eases-emotional-burden-of-people-who-stutter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/more-than-words-therapy-also-eases-emotional-burden-of-people-who-stutter\/","title":{"rendered":"More than words: Therapy also eases emotional burden of people who stutter"},"content":{"rendered":"

At a long wooden table in the Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic\u2019s Juniper Room, Northern Arizona University graduate student\u00a0Chase Larsen\u00a0<\/strong>sits across from his past. And freshman\u00a0Lindsay Muto\u00a0<\/strong>peers back, hoping to see her future.<\/p>\n

Each of them is \u201ca person who stutters\u201d\u2014an intentional description that avoids the negative label of \u201cstutterer.\u201d On this day, Larsen and fellow grad student\u00a0Naomi Brandis<\/strong>\u2014both in the Clinical Speech-Language Pathology program\u2014will work with Muto in a therapy session that is as much about dispelling fears and building confidence as it is about cultivating linguistic fluency.<\/p>\n

Associate professor\u00a0Judy King<\/strong>, who is overseeing the session from behind an observation window, points out the emotional responses that charge the room, and which escape the awareness of most people.<\/p>\n

King said her message to clients is that \u201cYou are many things, but stuttering doesn\u2019t define you.\u201d For people who stutter, she said, \u201cthere are feelings and attitudes below the surface, such as fear, shame and isolation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muto has been through therapy on and off throughout her life, but \u201cthis is the first setting where her feelings and attitudes are being dealt with,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Services and studies at NAU<\/strong><\/p>\n

A full range of services, provided by graduate student clinicians, is available at NAU\u2019s Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic.\u00a0The clinic is open to clients of all ages.<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0master\u2019s program<\/a>, offered through the\u00a0Communications Sciences and Disorders department<\/a>\u00a0in the College of Health and Human Services, includes two tracks with a highly competitive application process.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Larsen knows the feeling. He also experienced on-and-off therapy and entered NAU as an undergraduate \u201cflying under the radar.\u201d That changed when he encountered King in grad school, who told him he needed to get into intensive therapy after hearing him read a passage in voice testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like nothing I had ever done before,\u201d Larsen said. \u201cIn the last eight months, I made more progress than in the previous eight years.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Larsen learned, besides confidence, was how to use strategies to get him past blocks. Now he\u2019s working with his own clients while continuing to work on his own fluency.<\/p>\n

As King put it, \u201cI told him this experience is going to make him a really honest clinician. He won\u2019t ask a client to do things he wouldn\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this session, which begins with a meditative deep-breathing exercise, Larsen reads part of a passage using a light articulation technique, softening the hard sounds, and Muto emulates him. Her primary block is laryngeal, in which she closes her vocal folds abruptly, preventing air from moving forward.<\/p>\n

Muto does well, but the interaction is in a clinical setting and not spontaneous.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdults will get to a crossroads,\u201d King said, \u201cbecause there\u2019s a lot of emotional and intellectual work needed to apply fluency strategies in daily interactions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just the day before, Muto had introduced herself to a group of 30 children at Killip Elementary as part of her coursework. (She, too, is studying speech therapy.) But a simple \u201cHi, I\u2019m Lindsay,\u201d would not be so simple. According to King, such introductions are a common fear among persons who stutter.<\/p>\n

Muto said she blocked briefly, and then used a light articulatory contact strategy to get past it.<\/p>\n

Larsen congratulated her on the success, remembering his own struggles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely think this field is a great choice for me because it makes me confront head-on what I had to deal with,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s rewarding to see changes in a client. I think all week about things that can help in a session, and when it works, that\u2019s cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The session continues with a desensitizing exercise, in which Muto is prompted to stutter a word on purpose. The point of such pseudo-stuttering, King said, is to desensitize Muto\u2019s feelings about stuttering \u201cso that she can become more tolerant of stuttering behaviors and more effectively learn to change them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Larsen\u2019s grasp of that lesson was a key to his progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I started therapy, I felt like there was nothing I could do about stuttering,\u201d Larsen said. \u201cNow I feel confident and know that I have control over my speech. I know what I\u2019m doing wrong and I can change it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a long wooden table in the Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic\u2019s Juniper Room, Northern Arizona University graduate student\u00a0Chase Larsen\u00a0sits across from his past. And freshman\u00a0Lindsay Muto\u00a0peers back, hoping to see her future. Each of them is \u201ca person who stutters\u201d\u2014an intentional description that avoids the negative label of \u201cstutterer.\u201d On this day, Larsen and…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":7232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}