How Do I Define Successful 'Stuttering Therapy'?

How Do I Define Successful 'Stuttering Therapy'? Over my lifetime I attended many speech therapy sessions with professional speech therapists and they had no or little impact on my desires to speak what I termed ‘like a normal person’ It got me thinking about my own courses and the form of therapy I offer individuals and what would be successful outcomes. This also got me thinking about the term ‘fluency’. In stuttering circles, we use the word a lot but for a stutterer is the concept of fluency the same as for a non-stutterer? The fluency that is “natural” for a particular speaker is based on many factors. A person has basic speech motor skills and linguistic skills, and these combine with experiences, skills learned in therapy (or, in some cases artifacts of previous therapy), “coping behaviors” that have been developed over a long period of time, self-perceptions and many other factors that make each person unique. So what constitutes a successful therapy intervention? Firstly, I would argue that a change in the persons ‘state of fluency’is a primary goal. Of course, we who stutter all seek that utopian goal of high levels of fluency or what we perceive as ‘normal fluency’. However, if one of my clients cannot achieve these levels it does not mean that the therapy intervention has not been successful. For many stutterers, a change in fluency does not mean normal fluency, nor does it necessarily mean low levels of disfluency. To me, it means the individual who works with me has learned a different more effective way of talking specifically to him or her. The success outcomes start with the individual confronting his or her stutter, learning about his or her speech, how it varies in certain situations, and the factors that affect both fluency and disfluency for that individual. The individual strives to be the best speaker and communicator they can be and is capable of being. The next outcome that can have a real impact in reducing the impact of your stutter in your everyday life. This might be measured in the way that an individual goes about their day to day activities, social life, and impacts on working life. An individual who has had successful therapy learns not to let stuttering impact and play a significant role in major life decisions. Finally, and probably most importantly to be successful in therapy you have to confront your stutter and accepted it as part of your speaking life. The acceptance of your stutter lets you view your speech and its liabilities as a speaker.