Stuttering and the SpeechEasy

I watched two videos for this one. I was intrigued about the SpeechEasy from my previous post so I did a little youtube search about it. I found two stories from Good Morning America. The first was about a girl named Amamda Cowles. She has been stuttering since she was a little girl. She was made fun of during her time in school. So much so that she left high school at 16 and wanted to kill herself. She was put in special education classes because her teachers thought she was “retarded.” She had been in speech therapy, but it didn’t seem to be helping.

On the show, she was talking about her disorder. She was having a really hard time talking because she was under more pressure than normal. Her Speech-Language Pathologist was sitting next to her. She said that Amanda had a moderate-severe stuttering problem. Interestingly, when the SLP was talking about the SpeechEasy, she said, “stutterers” instead of “people who stutter.” She said that the SpeechEasy works around 85% of the time. Those that see success, see it with a 50-90% rise in their fluency.

When Amanda put the device in her ear and started talking, I could only hear a very slight stutter a couple of times. She did really well, except that Charlie Gibson kept cutting her off…

The other video was of a guy named Mark Babcock. He had been stuttering since he was a little boy. His stuttering was pretty severe but he was able to graduate high school with straight A’s and was voted Homecoming King. He saw a story on Good Morning America about one of the doctors who helped to invent SpeechEasy. His family ordered one for him. The camera crew was there when he tried it for the first time. He put it in and immediately started talking like he didn’t have any problem.

A week later, one of the reporters came by to see how he was doing. He was talking without any problems. The reporter asked him to take the device out and talk. He couldn’t get through a whole sentence. The reporter asked him to put it back in and he went on talking again, like he didn’t have any issues.
This SpeechEasy device is definitely something I want to do more research on…

The videos can be seen at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuO3DbnQjxE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9mvqN1BrMs&feature=related

Stuttering- A life-altering condition

This was a two-part video that I found on youtube.com. After searching around for a bit on stuttering, I found this video about Rebecca Glass. She has been stuttering since she was in the second grade. Stuttering is a disorder that not much is known about. It is a disorder that has been around for a long time. The Egyptians even wrote about stuttering. There are many famous people who stutter including Marylin Monroe, James Earl Jones and even Winston Churchill.

In the video, Rebecca talks a little about what her stuttering is like. She gets frustrated because she knows what she wants to say, but sometimes has a hard time saying it. As she was growing up, her friends were able to overlook her disorder, but she is preparing for college and is nervous about all of the new people she will be meeting and how they will react to her stuttering. She visited a Speech-Language Pathologist to receive a “SpeechEasy”. This is a device that looks like a hearing aid but instead of amplifiying sound, it alters sound so that you hear your voice at a very slight delay and at a different pitch. This helps with what is known as the choral effect. That is something that has proven effective for people who stutter. It is what happens when one who stutters sings or talks in unison with other people and their stuttering is dramatically reduced.

Rebecca tried this device and the first time she read a passage, there was a dramatic difference. There wasn’t any stuttering at all! Something like this will help me as I will be working with people who stutter. Knowing about this device can benefit many people that I come in contact with in my career. It may not help everyone as the price is pretty steep, ranging from $4100-$5100.

The videos can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj2IsxxCSS8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUa310vYN2w&feature=related

ASHA Autism article

This article was set up in four parts. The first part is an introduction to Autism and what Speech-Language professionals can do to help those who have it. Those that have Autism communicate in divers ways and means. They may use gestures, facial expressions, sign language, vocalizations, or various communication devices. Because of that, there are almost countless ways to be able to help those with Autism communicate. And while no two people with Autism are exactly the same, what SLP’s need to figure out is how to help each person to best suite their needs. A common and effective tool for SLP’s working with those with Autism are aided augmentative and alternative communication devices.

The rest of the article features three different kids that have Autism and what the SLP’s that worked with them did to help them effectively communicate. I won’t go into detail about what worked with each kiddo, but I will say that they had SLP’s that didn’t give up on them. The main thing for me to take from this article is that I need to get to know my clients and what things would help them best. Sometimes it will be a long, tough road and sometimes it will be the most simple of things that will help my future clients learn how to communicate.

The article can be found here: http://www.asha.org/Publications/leader/2010/100119/AutismCaseStudies.htm