Fluency as Goal Doesn’t Work
Why am I so passionate that we shift our goals for stuttering away from fluency? Here are 3 reasons.
There is no cure for stuttering. Plenty of people will stutter into adulthood, at no “fault” of their own
It encourages silence over communication
Counting stutters does not tell a person who stutters anything new. It often just makes them feel embarrassed - sometimes even re-traumatizes them.
When I was in high school, one of my IEP goals was “reduce stuttering instances to 0-1 in a 15 minute conversation” 🥲🥲 When my SLP would try to follow up with me on it, I gave vague answers.
I already thought about my stutter constantly… I didn’t want to intentionally think about it too!
You know how someone might “achieve” a higher fluency level?
- Saying “I don’t know” in class when they know the answer but might stutter on it.
- Ordering food they don’t want because it’s easier to say.
- Withdrawing from their peers to avoid conversations.
And if you think times have changed, we still hear from younger people in the community that their SLP gave them these goals. We still hear from some recent graduate SLPs that they were taught to instruct children who stutter to stop and tally mark each stutter.
Parents: this is why you need to understand the emotional impacts on these types of IEP or speech therapy goals. Not all SLPs are trained equally on stuttering. There are some INCREDIBLE SLPs out there, and there are many who may not know much about stuttering yet but would be happy to learn and improve.
Let’s build communication skills and let go of the unrealistic demand for fluency.
