I'd like to see the following:
1. Speech Therapy is only taught by fellow stutterers - who else really
knows what you've been and are still going through?
2. The first part of any speech therapy course deals with coming to
terms with your stutter i.e. until you are fully comfortable with your
stutter there is no attempt to gain better fluency. In other words, the
below water line feelings.
3. No one goes on a three day, seven day course and is then thrown back
into society. Courses should be long term and primarily geared to make
the client accept their existing stutter and realise that it's not the
end of the world.
4. Anyone looking for increased fluency is taught by stutterers who
themselves are now fluent - how else will they know whether the program
being offered is successful?.
5. All courses have a qualified support network (a buddy system like
AA) so that when there's a relapse (which there will be) the student can
pick up the phone and get the help needed.
6. All stutterers who complete said courses must agree to fill up a
questionnaire which is posted on an Internet database run by one of the
national stuttering organisations. Said questionnaire should have the
name and contact details of all clients so that prospective clients can
contact them and get the ins / outs of the course they wish to take. In
other words, no fake testimonials.
7. All courses should be free - at least until the age of 18 - so that
as many young stutterers as possible get the correct help needed i.e.
the worse time for stutterers is during their teenage, thinking of a
career age.
8. All stuttering gadgets are independently (Government) tested and
mandatory warnings are placed on all packaging explaining that these
gadgets will only be of temporary help i.e. the stutter will return
after several weeks or months and after that the unit will be as much
use as a Betamax video recorder.
9. Purchase of one of the above units can only be made if the client
has gone through the first part of the stuttering course outlined in
point 2.
Now, I realise that all of the above is currently impractical -
especially in the US with your insurance / medical / business approach
to health - but it should be possible in the UK with our National Health
System and perhaps the best place to start.
What's more, the only people who can make this happen are stutterers
themselves.
So, I'm going to throw out a challenge to the Stutt-Chat stutterers.
I've cobbled together the above nine points in ten minutes. Some of you
may agree, some may disagree with the points but if we came up with a
collective definitive and then approached the appropriate politicians -
at least in the UK - we might get somewhere.
If we sit back and do nothing then we've no right to complain about the
standard of service we receive at the moment.
