Stuttering Therapy: A View from Both Sides of the Table

This is a transcript from our podcast episode published January 30th, 2023. The podcast episode is offered for .1 ASHA CEU (introductory level, professional area). This transcript is made available as a course accommodation for and is supplementary to this episode / course. This transcript is not intended to be used in place of the podcast episode with the exception of course accommodation. Please note: This transcript was created by robots. We do our best to proof read but there is always a chance we miss something. Find a typo? Email us anytime.

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[00:00:00] Kate Grandbois: Welcome to SLP nerd cast, the number one professional resource for evidence based practice in speech, language pathology. I'm Kate Gradnbois 

[00:00:09] Amy Wonkka: and I'm Amy Wonka. We are both speech, language pathologists working in the field and co-founders of SLP nerd cast. 

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[00:01:45] Kate Grandbois: Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode. We are so excited to welcome back a guest Nina Reeves. And today she brings along with her, her husband Lee Reeves. Welcome Nina and Lee.

[00:01:56] Nina Reeves: Thank you. We're glad to be. I'm [00:02:00] glad to be back. And I'm glad to tow this one along. Yeah.

[00:02:03] Lee Reeves: Nice to meet y'all.

[00:02:04] Amy Wonkka: Nina and Lee, you are here to discuss stuttering therapy, a view from both sides of the table before you get started. Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves? 

[00:02:17] Nina Reeves: Why don't you go, oh, I'll go first. You go for it.

Well, um, my name's Nina Reeves and, um, I'm a stuttering specialist here in Texas and, um, I work in the public schools and in private practice and it's what I do all day, every day. Um, and this one. 

[00:02:37] Lee Reeves: Well, I'm, uh, Lee Reeves. Uh, I'm a retired veterinarian. Um, I've been in, uh, I had a private practice for over 40 years, 42 years.

Uh, I am also, uh, a person who stutters. I'm actually pretty good at it. Um, uh, I can stutter on just about anything at any time. Uh, even though I don't stutter as much [00:03:00] overtly today as I did when I was a youngster or going through, uh, high school or college even, um, I still stutter every day and, um, uh, still work within the self-help community and, uh, excited about being here as well.

And that's how we met.

[00:03:14] Nina Reeves: Yeah. We met through the national stuttering association when he was chairman of the board and I was a volunteer and, um, it was really kind of cool. And so we were friends for a long time and now we're married and have been for a while. 

[00:03:29] Kate Grandbois: I love that story. And I, as a person who knows you, it makes me wanna ask you more questions about that, but I will, I will refrain for the sake of your privacy.

[00:03:34] Nina Reeves: We'll do the love story after. Okay. 

[00:03:40] Lee Reeves: So great. I was looking for arm candy and, um, you know, there I am. 

[00:03:45] Nina Reeves: There you was

[00:03:45] Kate Grandbois:. I love it. I love it. It's awesome. Okay. So, um, we are really excited to get into this topic with you today. Discussing stuttering therapy from, as you say, both sides of the table. But before we get into that [00:04:00] conversation, I do need to read our learning objectives and our financial and non-financial disclosures.

Uh, so I will just go ahead and get that over with as quickly as possible. So learning objective number one, describe at least two ways that clinician experiential learning improves long term outcomes and stuttering therapy. And learning objective, number two, identify at least three roadblocks to therapeutic alliances and how to overcome them.

Disclosures Lee Reeves financial disclosures. Lee is the part owner and CFO of stuttering therapy resources Inc. Lee Reeves non-financial disclosures. Lee is a public member for speech language pathology on the ASHA council for clinical certification and speech language pathology and audiology. Lee is also a former chairman of the board for the national stuttering association.

Lee Reeve's financial disclosures. Sorry, Nina Reeve's financial disclosures. Nina is part owner and COO of stuttering therapy, resources, Inc. Nina Reeves non-financial disclosures. Nina is a [00:05:00] volunteer for the national stuttering association. Kate that's me, my non-financial disclosures. I am the owner and founder of Grandbois therapy and consulting, LLC.

And co-founder of SLP nerd cast. My non-financial disclosures. I'm a member of ASHA, sig 12 and serve on the AAC advisory group for Massachusetts advocates for children. I'm also a member of the Berkshire association for behavior analysis and therapy and the association for behavior analysis international and the corresponding speech pathology and applied behavior analysis, special interest group.

[00:05:29] Amy Wonkka: Amy that's me. My financial disclosures are that I am an employee of a public school system and co-founder of SLP nerd cast. And my non-financial disclosures are that I'm a member of ASHA, SIG 12, and I serve on the AAC advisory group for Massachusetts advocates for children. All right. Onto the good staff, Nina and Lee.

Why don't you both start us off by telling us a little bit about clinician experiential learning. What is that? 

[00:05:57] Lee Reeves: Well, I, I, I told Nina when we [00:06:00] started to discuss this, uh, to maybe it would be good if I went first as the, the individual who actually stutters and, and grew up with, uh, fairly significant stutter and have had a variety of speech therapists through through the years.

So from experiential standpoint, I'd like to share maybe just a couple of stories that I think have stayed with me and are, might be helpful. 

[00:06:24] Nina Reeves: And before you get started on that, uh, to, in, in direct answer to your question, clinician, experiential learning is really as simple, uh, as it sounds, it's learning from the experiences of, in this case, people who stutter, our clients are students, their families, and, um, learning more about the condition through that rather than all through academics and theory, but being, um, more receptive to listening to the experiences of those who stutter. 

[00:06:59] Lee Reeves: Yes. [00:07:00] Or even just having that understanding. Um, my first speech therapist, um, was, um, when I was nine years old, I was in the fourth grade. And, um, I don't recall what she looked like.

Really. I think she had red hair, but I don't really recall. And I don't remember her name and I don't really remember very much about what we actually did in therapy on a regular basis. Um, except that she was a recorder. I, I did a lot of recordings, but. One day I walked in and this is what I remember. I walked into therapy and she said, she sat me down and she drew a big circle on a sheet of paper.

And inside that big circle, she drew a little tiny circle down in one, one corner of that larger circle. And she said, Lee, I want you to look at this. She says, this large circle is you. I want you to think about that being you and this little tiny circle down in, uh, the bottom. That's your [00:08:00] stuttering. Now I was in the, I was nine years old and in the fourth grade, and that, you know, when folks ask me about my therapist, I say, well, they say what help?

I don't remember any strategies or any therapies or any, anything that we did. But I remember that now that was important to me and it, and so to me, what that said is that, that she thought that I was more than my stuttering and that she wasn't just treating my mouth. Um, that's why I didn't know that at the time.

But now, so that was an important thing to me as, uh, as, as, as a student and as a young person who was in therapy. And then the second example is jump ahead to the 11th and 12th grade. We had just moved, um, to the Washington DC area from San Antonio. Um, it was a tough move for me. Um, I didn't have any friends.

I had no support system up there. My stuttering was fairly significant. Uh, [00:09:00] at that time, in fact, it was very significant at that time. And, uh, so I was enrolled in school late. We got there late in the summer and, um, I had to go meet the new therapist. So I was called out of class to go down, uh, in the first week or two to meet my new therapist.

And I was wondering, you know, is this the one, is this the one that's gonna help me? Is this the one that's gonna fix this? You know, who is this? And so I walked in and. Um, she was interested in my move from Texas, et cetera. And, and in that conversation, I happened to mention that I didn't, I was really disappointed cuz I didn't get into the concert choir.

I had sung in the choir was one of the things that I was also an athlete, but singing in the choir was really important to me. And we'd gotten there so late that I didn't, I didn't get into that choir. I was in the boy's glee club or something, which was, you know, was not interesting to me. So that was that.

And a, a few days later I got called down to the office and [00:10:00] I thought I was in trouble. I mean, it usually took me at least a month, but I, it was, you know, I was there much earlier, so I get down to the office and they had me a new schedule and the new schedule has the concert choir on it. So what I learned and found out is that she had gone down after that conversation.

After the first time we had met and she was able to change my schedule. So that was very important. That was one of the first things that happened. And again, in retrospect, I think what that said to me nonverbally is that she really cared about me about, you know, not just, again, my mouth, not just a stuttering.

And then from that point, I remember that, um, she shared with me fairly early that, um, I was her first case, if you will, or her first student who stuttered, she was young and she was, uh, outta school, not very long now that might have had something to do with why I liked her so much. But the, the point was is that, um, [00:11:00] she was kind of vulnerable in that sense, but, but she said that, you know, we, we would learn kind of together in a way that we'd do this.

And that created a lot of trust for me and, and, and her, um, willingness to be kind of vulnerable. Um, you know, we kind of talk about this therapeutic Alliance and I think that was what it, what it was is I, I, we, we, we began to, she began to listen to me and I found it to be a very safe place. I actually, for the first time in all of my therapies through school looked forward to going to my therapy session once a week. And again, strategies and things. I don't remember any specifics, but whatever the conversation was, it was, it was about life. It was about me. It was about support. Stuttering certainly played in to all of our conversations, but it was more about supporting me and, and being, [00:12:00] um, helpful.

And then the last thing that she did this, these, these all occurred in that two, your time period was that, um, she introduced me to self-help, she, she, one day I went into therapy and she said that she had heard about this new group that was forming, uh, you know, downtown Washington, DC at Catholic university, uh, or for adults who stuttered and wondered if I might be interested in going to that group, which I did as scared as I was, because desperate people do desperate things. And I was pretty desperate. That's a D D D that just runs together, done it. um, uh, and so all of that combined told me and her name was Roseanne Clauson. And what that said to me, uh, in retrospect is that, is that she was listening to me and she was learning from me as I was learning from her.

[00:13:00] Um, and so I think that that alliance, that understanding it, that trust, I, I had a great deal of trust in her, but it didn't happen overnight. It happened over time. And, uh, did it solve my stuttering? Uh, goodness, no. I mean, my actual overt struggle. My stuckness with my stuttering was just as significant.

And in fact, maybe even became more significant when I left high school than went off to college. But it wasn't about my stuttering. It was about somebody who believed in me and encouraged me and said that I could do anything that I wanted to do regardless. Or in spite of, or regardless of how I spoke.

[00:13:42] Kate Grandbois: I've been taking notes as you were talking, and you touched on so many aspects of your experience that stuck out. And first I wanna point out that nothing you've mentioned was specifically about strategies, which is something that we've already learned from Nina, that there are so many [00:14:00] components to this outside of what we learned in graduate school.

But one of the themes that really struck me about the stories you just told were really about the relationship that you developed with your speech pathologist or with your therapist. And in that relationship, there was bidirectional, there was a bidirectional relationship. So you knew something about your therapist.

You were able to develop a trust, a sense of trust in that relationship, the person in the relationship with you, advocated for you for something that wasn't related to your stutter. So this is what makes him happy. I'm going to go advocate and try and make that change. Um, I wonder, you know, these are all, this is again, I guess something that we've talked about with Nina before, but these are not things that we learned in graduate school as clinicians.

These are not things that if anything, I think at least for me, and I'm only speaking for myself and my experience, I was taught to establish boundaries with [00:15:00] my students and clients to not share personal information. And to uphold a more professional quote, professional relationship. That was more about probably power and knowledge, to be honest and, and knowing the things that I, that I knew.

I don't know if either one of you wanna, 

[00:15:17] Lee Reeves: well, let me come back, lemme come. Yeah, let me come back to that. Um, cuz that's a very important point, but let me give you before I answer that, that question. Let me give you the opposite side of some of my therapy. Okay. So I gave you the two therapists that I had out of the five that were very, these are things I remember.

I don't remember two of them, except that one of 'em didn't like me. And so I didn't go back anymore, but, uh, I don't think she liked me. She didn't act like she liked me. I don't know. But, but then there was one that, that, that had a huge impact on me and this, uh, again, I was in the 10th grade. This was before we moved, uh, to Washington.

[00:16:00] And as I said, I sang in the choir and I stumbled onto this, this amazing concept one day in choir when the instructor called, uh, the choir director called on me. And I noticed that if I tapped my toe inside of my shoe, I was able to answer the question. Without stuttering. And it was incredible. I mean, I thought, wow, this is, this is cool.

So I went to therapy that week and when I walked into my therapy session and I don't remember this therapist's name at all, or anything else about what we did except she was a reader and we can go at that later. Um, and so I said to her, she handed to me the newspaper to start to read. I read the first paragraph, just like this and was not stuttering at all, which was highly unusual for me because I was a good stutterer.

I did it really well. And she, uh, she looked [00:17:00] at me and she said, oh my gosh, what's changed. What are, what are you doing? And I said, well, you don't know this right now, but I'm tapping my toe inside of my shoe. And she said, that's terrific. That's amazing. That's wonderful. Whatever you can do to not stutter. And so that said to me that, that that was not only okay, that those are the kinds of things that I should be doing because stuttering, I mean, I didn't like to stutter of course.

And so she was encouraging me to avoid my stuttering in a sense, and that toe tap led to a foot pump to a hand fist, to a grimacing, to all of the different kinds of secondary behaviors and surface behaviors that, that as I recall, came out of that session. So here was someone in retrospect who was treating my mouth [00:18:00] and not treating me.

And, and that's really kind of juxtapo-, juxtaposition to the other two that I talked about. So there's that. And then quickly getting back to your question, uh, about this idea of, of hands off and the boundaries. I was taught the same thing. When I went to veterinary school, we were told not to help, not to make decisions for clients, that we were just there to get to lay out the facts and it was up to them to make the decisions.

And you learn this, you know, you try this out early and you know what you learn if you own a pet. I mean, if you, if you're a pet owner yourself, but in, in a professional stance over time, you do have an opinion. You do have some experience. You do. It's not that you're going, I'm going to tell them what to do, but I can be a lot more empathetic with that client.

I can say, I understand where you're coming from. And when they legitimately legitimately asked [00:19:00] me, what would you do? What would you do Dr. Reeves? I could say, well, I'm not exactly sure what I would do. I would be struggling the same way you are. I would be facing the same kinds of questions as you are. I would be taking the information that I'm giving to you, and I'd be struggling with it to try to make that kind of a decision, whichever way you go.

I'm on your side. You know, I'm here to do that for you. So it's, it's, it's giving in a little bit. It's not, it's not, um, breaking down to the barrier completely. I think you can maintain a very professional relationship and still have a relationship. 

[00:19:40] Nina Reeves: that's a good way to put it. Mm-hmm oh, let's write that down.

[00:19:45] Amy Wonkka: well, because we are, oh, go ahead. Go ahead. We are all people. So in, in, in both of these worlds, whether you're a speech language pathologist, you're a veterinarian, you're interacting with people about  [00:20:00] people things. And so to completely take away the humanity of it all just seems impossible and also wrong.

I mean, I think the other piece Lee, as you were talking about kind of your, that third therapist who you don't really remember, you know, I think one thing that I was reflecting on while you were talking is just how, how impactful. The choices that we make in terms of what to say and do as clinicians can be even something that might seem small to us, if we're not reflecting on it, the way that we should be.

Um, and I think that's probably really true for you in your veterinary practice as well. Um, you know, I think you’re probably giving people a lot of like helpful feedback that just makes them feel better. 

[00:20:51] Lee Reeves: Well, it's a, it's it it's, um, it's about relationships and, and you know, why did I [00:21:00] remember those three things out of all of my years of therapy and all of, all of my years of stuttering and all my years of living, why do I remember the circles?

When I was nine years old. Why do I remember the, the idea of somebody changing a schedule for me that had nothing really to do with stuttering directly? Why do I remember that? And why do I remember the toe tapping incident? Well, those were major, uh, events that had really to do with my stuttering, but had nothing to do with strategies.

Uh, and yet they were, they were on the one hand, it was a positive impact. But the one that actually had something to do with the strategy toe tapping, which some people, you know, finger tap, they do it, which could be construed as a strategy, had a real negative effect on me. Now that's not to say that strategies are bad.

And, and I mean, we, we need [00:22:00] them both of course. But when one is emphasized in the absence of the other, I think, uh, we can run into trouble. And that's where learning, that's where understanding the phenomena of stuttering. Getting back to the, what we're talking about here, experiential learning and experiential knowledge is more than academic knowledge and a set of skills that you learn in graduate school that you forget like three weeks when you're, when you're out of graduate school.

It is, it is ongoing learning and, and, and allowing yourself to, to understand the phenomena of stuttering, not just the term, not just, you know, what you see on the service, but what is it? What's the experience like, what is it like for me and others like me to live with this every single day. And how, how can you as, as caring individuals and caring therapists, uh, interact with that in a meaningful way, that is not just [00:23:00] about trying to fix something that you can't fit fix.

[00:23:05] Kate Grandbois: I have a, a question, but before I get to my question about how clinicians who are listening can actively seek out experiential learning. I wanted to ask or at least make a comment, um, about something that I think is tied to your negative experience with the toe tapping. It makes me think of all of the implicit biases that we have or all of these implicit rules we have about what is accept, socially acceptable.

What's not socially acceptable, what's quote good. And what's quote, you know, what is quote bad and, and that your therapist, in that instance, I don't wanna make assumptions about her intention, but I can imagine a lot of us with having the right intentions accidentally communicate these implicit biases about how that is bad.

And we want you to do that less, or you know, where even if the intention is, I [00:24:00] know this is something that you would like to change or improve, and I'm here to support you in that it's these very nuanced messages, um, and the role of implicit bias that I. Leaks out. Do you agree with that? Is that, is that something that, that resonates with you?

[00:24:15] Nina Reeves: Well, I think, um, you know, you're gonna learn, you're gonna lead us right into objective number two, but before we get there, uh, I'll answer, I'll answer it this way. Um, you know, it's not truly an answer. It's a thought pattern. The, the experiences Lee has shared, and of course I know all of them and I've heard them before and I, I, I just think they're, so they, they really shine a light on the different, um, the differences in our training and the differences in our biases.

And I'm not even sure. Um, I was speaking to some therapists. Um, I did a presentation just the other day and I was standing with them in this big room and I thought, you [00:25:00] know, I'm not even sure we actually believe that we're supposed to fix stuttering. I'm not sure that we came into this profession saying we are gonna get rid of that stuttering.

That stuttering is bad. We're gonna get those people to stop that thing. Right. It's an aberrant behavior. I'm not sure anybody ever goes in thinking that. And so it's almost like I we're giving permission to therapists to go, wait a second, let me step back from the training or the social stigma or the messages we get as therapists and just people on the planet that fluency good stutter bad, you know, and you don't even have to say stutter bad.

If you say fluency good. If you praise fluency, if you do anything to have fluency and, and Lee and I were talking, you know, before, before doing this today that, um, you know, that's considered fluency at all cost, that toe tap, that's a cost. there's a cost to that, right? So you [00:26:00] may see an an on the surface fluency, but it's gonna break down.

It will. It'll stop working. Um, and then there's costs for that because the, the message is, as you're talking about the unintended messages, um, yes, let's do anything you can to not stutter, which then increases the struggle. 

[00:26:23] Lee Reeves: Stuttering is, is very hard. It's very difficult to explain in a meaningful way to people that don't stutter.

And in fact, it's pretty difficult sometimes to explain to those of us who do stutter, um, because it's so variable and intermittent, it's a, neuromotor, you know, it's an inherited and developmental neuromotor condition that has to do with our neurology. And it, it, it is not something that is easy to explain to somebody that doesn't stutter because.

People who don't stutter have never really felt that out of [00:27:00] control that, that inability to move forward or to get out of, um, uh, a long block or a repetition or a prolongation, those kinds of things, where we get stuck in our neurology gets stuck. And in our heads, we're saying just open your mouth, stupid.

Just open up, just go, okay, just relax. Okay. Just let the air flow, come on. You know how to do this? And you've done it a million times. Just take a deep breath, you know, do whatever these are the things that are, that are cycling continually inside of our head that nobody else can see hear or feel except for us.

And to try to explain that phenomena, to try to help people to understand the experience of living with that is incredibly difficult. And, and, and because it's variable, you know, I still stutter, but I don't stutter with the frequency or the severity that I did, uh, when I was young. [00:28:00] And you know, we talk about this, I talk about this some, when I give these lectures is that sometimes I feel like an imposter because I'm, I'm representing this community. And yet, sometimes people look at me and say, well, gee, you don't stutter. You know, I don't hear you stutter. Well, they don't realize that that's an insult to me, but it's, they're not trying to be mean.

It's just that they don't know what it's like to have this variability and this intermittent unpredictable interruption in the flow of speech. And so it's a difficult con it's not like articulation, you know, that you fix , you know, this, we have to, we have to learn. It's so nuanced. As you said, we have to learn not only.

How to, uh, accept ourselves and come to terms with the idea that, you know, we're probably gonna stutter some, you know, once we're older than six or seven or so, and that's probably gonna be with us and how that, how we [00:29:00] come to terms with that and come to learn that and understand it is gonna be, is gonna be based on age, age related information.

I mean, you know, you're not gonna talk to a seven year old the same way you're gonna talk to a 13 or a 25 or 35 year old about their stuttering, but somehow. That's what you guys are so good at is being able to be creative and find ways to help all ages regard, you know, where you, whatever setting you're in, but finding ways to help us come to terms with, first of all, the fact that we stutter.

And then that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do something about it or that we shouldn't, you know, want to improve our ability, um, to, to not, to, to, to improve that stuckness. It's not that we're not gonna get stuck. I just like to know, I'd like to not to get stuck as hard or as much. And if I do, which I'm going to.

I need to know how to manage that emotion, [00:30:00] that feeling, you know, wow. That was a good one. You know, you know, easy for me to say, you know, I mean, things like that, that, that allow, allow not only me to be okay with the fact that I just had an interruption in my speech, but allows my listeners to allow the people that I'm talking with to hear that, that I know what I just did and that I'm okay with it.

And that I'm happy to share with you what that is. Um, and in fact, uh, I don't do it to put you at ease. I'm doing it to put myself at ease, but in, in doing that, it also puts my listener at ease. Does that make sense? Uh, so it's, it's, it's about helping us to come to terms with that and then helping us to manage, uh, our lives with stuttering, cuz we're gonna stutter and, and it is okay to stutter that we get so confused about you know, saying, is it okay? And, and then, okay, if it's okay to stutter, does that [00:31:00] mean that we don't need therapy or we didn't want therapy or that, you know, it's just out there. Um, some people, you know, for some folks that works for them and that's fine, they, they they're, they're management, they're coming to terms with their own stuttering means stutter like it is, you know?

Um, and, and that's fine. Others say, yeah, stuttering is okay, but, but I still would like to do something to communicate easier. I'd like to communicate easier. I would like to be less stuck if you will. And so that's okay too. It's it's I don't wanna throw the baby out with the B with the bath water. It's it's all part of you know what Aristotle said? There's an, there's an apoplexy, there's an internal seizing of some kind of a mechanism internally. And he also talked about, uh, um,[00:32:00] melancholy. See, that was so good. Sometimes you just get stuck and, you know, melancholy, melancholy, melancholy. I can say that. Come on Lee. Geez. So, but he talked about a melancholy, which was this emotional aspect of studying that was 365 BC. Come on. I mean, it, it's not like this is new stuff. So 

[00:32:25] Nina Reeves: I love my geeky husband who has the history of stuttering at a moment's notice.

And, and I love that. I love that there are people in the world that remind us clinicians that it's not the technical stuff. It's not all about the technician. It's the clinical, which means relationships, which means more than just the stutter. You know, as we say, in our books that we write and you've had Scott on the podcast, you know, stuttering is more than just stuttering.

It's more it's, it's the experience, not just the moment. [00:33:00] And certainly there are moments of stuttering that Lee has and that all of our students have that we're never gonna see. So counting those stutters. I don't know, chasing a grease pig, don't know, uh, variable, uh, situational, uh, under the surface on the surface, we don't even know how many times a kid stutter.

So why are we trying to do progress in therapy? Um, based on percent of fluent speech, that's just, we've already done a podcast on that. They can go back and listen to that part. But you know, there are just too many nuances, as you said, tape 

[00:33:37] Kate Grandbois: well, and something that I am reflecting on having, you know, Lee, listening to your stories, you know, Hearing about the importance of this experiential component, but also thinking about our first learning objective with learn improving long term outcomes.

It seems to me, and maybe, maybe I'm connecting the dots incorrectly, but those long term outcomes are not defined by the [00:34:00] therapists. Those long term outcomes are defined by the person that you are working with in therapy using a person-centered care approach. Right? 

[00:34:11] Lee Reeves: Yep. It's so funny. You should say that because one of the things that I think is so sad about your profession is that, is that you don't get to see the results of your work. Oftentimes you have a student, particularly if you're in the schools, uh, you have a student for maybe a year or two, if you're lucky, maybe three, uh, rarely four, but, you know, and, and changes, particularly in that age group, are not gonna happen that quickly and that frequently. So the groundwork of the foundation that you have that you're able to lay at that time can pay a lot of dividends later. And, uh, I had the, the great fortune of meeting up with Roseanne Clauson 25 years later, 20 years later, she actually worked for ASHA, uh, uh, because I went to high school in the, in that area.[00:35:00] 

And so long story short, I had the opportunity to track her down, uh, and meet her. And, uh, I, I set up a lunch with her at an Asha convention. I actually took off work and went to San Antonio, uh, to meet her. And we had these yearbooks cuz we didn't look like each other. It's been a long time. And I went and, and I, I was just glowing because she made such an impact on my life.

And so I took her to lunch. And uh, spent the whole lunch period kind of talking about there a whole lunch time talking about this and her eyes, her she jaw was on the table and her eyes were just open at the end of our lunch. She, she said, Lee, I just have to ask you. She said, what did I do?

and I said, you did everything. So that's your point is that, um, yeah, the long term outcome was, was me, uh, those little things, the big circle, the little circle, the, um, the changing of the schedule, the introducing me to self health, the, the, [00:36:00] the sitting in that room in a safe place, and being able to talk about all kinds of things in life, but still somehow incorporating my stuttering into those conversations.

Those are, those are short term events that, that have long term outcomes. And the sad thing I think for y'all is that you oftentimes, most of the time, never get to see the results of that foundational work that you are able to do. And I oftentimes tell speech that, you know, when I, when I was walking down to, to see Roseanne Clauson for the very first time in the 11th grade, what was going through my mind was, is this the one, is this gonna be the one.

That's going to make this go away. That's going to, you know, that and what I, and she wasn't the one, nobody was the one that made it go away. But what I try to instill in speech pathologists is you [00:37:00] can be the one. You are the one, um, in, in laying that foundational work, that therapeutic alliance that trust that being able to help kids, um, and adults for that matter, not just, um, uh, know who they are and, and understand that stuttering doesn't define them.

You know, it's just a small part of what they have to offer in this life and that yes, your skills can help them manage some of those tough times, both, um, physically tough times and emotionally tough times, and a really good therapist, uh, goes past that just knowledge and skill set that you came outta graduate school with a really good therapist, has an experiential.

They, they get into it and listen to and learn from, from their students. They learn from the people who stutter and take in that knowledge, because. [00:38:00] While you can't understand fully the experience, the lived experience that we have, you can get it, you can learn how to get it. Uh, quote, unquote, if you listen to us.

[00:38:15] Kate Grandbois: I, I love that.

And I, something you said actually brings us a little bit more into our second learning objective. It was, you've mentioned the term therapeutic alliance. I wonder if you could either define it or describe it. What is an ideal therapeutic alliance? What do you mean when you say that?

[00:38:30] Nina Reeves: Oh, well, that's a great question.

And I think, you know, when, when we're talking about therapeutic alliance, we're talking about aligning expectations, aligning understanding of who each of the people in the therapeutic, um, I would call it the therapeutic circle would be, and for us in the public schools, especially, well, no, for us, anybody who [00:39:00] works with anybody who has a family or a teacher or a, uh, uh, an employer, there is a therapeutic circle that extends well beyond the therapy room.

And so the idea is to align with the communication environments of the client that you're working with. Okay. The people in them and the understanding and perceptions of stuttering in those spaces, as well as with the understanding and perceptions of stuttering of the client that you're working with.

[00:39:39] Lee Reeves: Yeah. And it, it, you know, I, I think that terms comes, comes outta the psychology literature and, um, you know, for, for me, what it means is that the alliance is, is that it, that, that the barriers or the boundaries that you spoke about earlier, um, are not blurred, but they're expanded. And it it's, it's a, it's a team effort.

I mean, an alliance that we're [00:40:00] doing this together, it's not me doing it to you or fixing you or telling you what to do or necessarily how to do it. It's it's us exploring this together. And, um, it's a, it's a give and take. So we have an alliance, it's a therapeutic alliance. That's based on trust. Um, I, as a, as a client or as a kid who stutters, if I don't trust you, , you know, if, if, if I don't, if I don't trust you, uh, to, to be open and you know, for me to be open, I'm not gonna be open and honest with you.

You ask, you know, you ask any 13 year old boy. Well, does stuttering bother you? Nah, doesn't bother me. No, I'm not gonna tell you that , you know, and, but if you had that Alliance, if you had that, that trust, then first of all, you wouldn't phrase it. That question, that way you would phrase the question and another way to tease out, um, what, and you can only do that by getting to, by, by being [00:41:00] vulnerable, by allowing them in a little bit into your thinking and your think and you're into theirs.

So I think that's, what's so important about that therapeutic alliance. It's it's really about trust, but, and I think the therapist has to. The client as well as student,

[00:41:15] Nina Reeves: bigbig, big difference. And I was gonna, I was gonna, he was already reading my mind. This is what we do every day. Every, every day over coffee, let's solve all the world's problems.

um, mostly stuttering and speech language pathology profession, but you know, we're working on it. And one of the things that happens is the idea that, uh, that trust. And I don't wanna, I don't wanna minimize this if you don't trust the client, if us, as the therapist do not trust that that client can, um, be in this alliance with us, then, you know, it's gonna break down no matter how much the client trusts us.

If we don't trust the student and the family and the, and the, the, the therapeutic circle to make [00:42:00] change or to be vulnerable or all of those things, then it, then that's what we'll get is mistrust. If we don't, if we don't trust 

[00:42:08] Lee Reeves:  the, um, I think the three most important words for, for me, uh, as, as a clinician, um, as a clinical practicing veterinarian for all these years, and I think transfers over to speech pathology as well, the three most important words, I think that I ever relate to a client where I don't know.

I, I don't know, but followed by I'll find out or I will, I will. Yeah. Or I will get you to somebody who knows. Um, you know, that's a very interesting issue. I haven't seen that in a long time. It's, you know, I know what this is, I think, but it's been a long time since I've seen that in your case. I had, um, a youngster who stutters in a while.

So you know what, I'm not sure, but I'm gonna find out and that maybe you don't say that to the child, but you talk to the parents. I guess my point is, is that, is [00:43:00] that we have to get, we have to get off of this, this therapeutic view of the world, where, where I am intelligent, I am the purveyor of all knowledge and all things.

And I am going to, to provide you with what I think is important for you in this situation I am going to now, even if I'm not going to fix you, I still am the purveyor of the knowledge. It there's no alliance there. And we have to get past that. We have to break that barrier down and, and find that that it's okay to trust clients with their information.

And it's okay for us, me as a, as a veterinary practitioner and you as a clinician to say, you know what, I don't have all the answers, but I am more than willing to do whatever it takes to be on your team and to help you out. 

[00:43:57] Kate Grandbois: I'm just gonna say this back to you. It's, it's, it's [00:44:00] encapsulated in, um, in just a handful of qualities.

I'm hearing the importance of vulnerability, the importance of humility. And the importance of humanity. So being a person and engaging in some shared space of vulnerability and how mu how far that can go to build trust. Amy, what were you gonna say? I'm sorry. 

[00:44:23] Amy Wonkka: I, no, I, I just think it's also helpful to clinicians, any clinician be a veterinarian in our speech pathologist permission to not know all the things, you know, we, we talk a lot on here about our scope of practice is really, really, really broad.

We, we can't know all the things and I think, you know, often we're put in this position, whether it's because of the infrastructure in which we work, uh, or like kind of our own self-imposed limitations that we feel like we have to, we have to know everything. We have to have all the answers. And if we are coming into [00:45:00] a therapeutic interaction with somebody with that personal perspective, that could also give us some anxiety coming in, you know, I, I don't know all the answers and I'm not sure what to do, but I have to be the best.

And I have to know all of the things. And I would think that if that's how you're entering, um, an interaction with a client, you're, you're never going to make it that that's gonna be a persistent roadblock. Like you're never going to have that opportunity to build the trust because you are not gonna feel comfortable being vulnerable.

Um, and so I think part of it is, uh, is like explicitly giving permission to people, just practice saying it, just practice saying I don't. I don't know, but I'll find out, I don't know, but I'll look into that. It's okay. 

[00:45:44] Lee Reeves: And you're exactly right, because I think when, when it's not, when, when we, when we don't have that attitude, what it does is it sets us up, um, in kind of a lose, lose situation.

I think because expectations and intent get kind of mixed and expectations on [00:46:00] both sides, uh, expectations from us. I mean, why do we come to you? We come to you cause we don't wanna stutter. I mean, it's real clear. I don't wanna stutter. Um, and so we're coming to you with an expectation that you're going to make this go away.

Um, and whether that, and that's an unrealistic expectation, but nevertheless, that, that is what is in our mind, as, uh, as a clinician, some clinicians have an expectation that they're going to make that go away. Not all, but some, if you just do this thing or that thing, it's gonna make it better. And so there's, there's an intent of each one of us wanting to, I want to get help.

You want to help. I have an expectation that's unrealistic. You may have an expectation that's unrealistic. And so what has to happen. And I think from y'all's perspective, the real expert, the real, the, the real, um, uh, uh, or the real professional, the one that's experienced says, [00:47:00] in a way, not says out loud, but helps us to reframe our expectations.

So what am I really saying? Well, I'm saying I don't wanna stutter, but in the end point, it's that I wanna be able to communicate. I wanna be able to say what I wanna say when I wanna say it. And I only think that can be done if I don't stutter. And so what, what, what the underlying issue here is, you can help me over time to reframe that, to the idea that stuttering is.

Okay. I'm gonna help you to, to maybe, um, com communicate a little easier. But that stuttering is okay. And let's deal with that emotional side of that as well, if that makes sense. So I think it's a, it's a real, it's a reframing of expectations on both sides, because otherwise it ends up with a we versus they, we, we, we come out of therapy with, um, a negative, [00:48:00] um, impact, not necessarily impact, but, but we don't feel like it was successful.

Um, in many instances, not all of course. And so we're reluctant to go back into therapy again. Now I'm talking now as an adult, not as a child, um, a little reluctant to go back into therapy because we didn't have that great of an experience in our earlier years. Uh, and not all of us, I'm really talking in generalities here.

So I think that if we have, if, if we can that experiential learning, I think, and understanding the experience of what it's like to stutter, um, if. If the clinician can, can, can get that, can understand that. Then I think it leads to a more positive outcome and a longer term outcome regardless of, of stuttering behavior, regardless of what we would call fluency.

Um, we, we wanna stutter on our own terms in a way or come to terms with it 

[00:48:58] Kate Grandbois: and, and everything that you're [00:49:00] talking about, all of these different facets of the alliance, I, and, and the rapport building and the trust and the vulnerability, uh, it's making me think of, of one part, one barrier in particular, which is our infrastructure.

So how much time do you have as a school based SLP to build this rapport. How many hours do you have before someone expects you to write an objective and define what the long term outcomes are when that's not even really there for you to define? Um, I, I, I have to imagine that, you know, just this marriage of being a person centered clinician with the balancing that with the realities of our job is, is, is so hard.

[00:49:47] Nina Reeves:I think that's a great point is that the barriers pop up, um, and I've always been, and I think, I think clinicians, um, it can be helpful for us to [00:50:00] adopt a yes, there's the barrier. How do I move through it? Right. Instead of always seeing the barriers, because if you work in private practice, there's barriers, if you work in university or, um, hospital rehab, there's always barriers.

If you work in the public schools, all you see sometimes are barriers. Um, speaking as a public school clinician and the, the, the point is, is that we can be surrounded by barriers. We can also take the idea of, wow, that's tough. I'm not gonna pretend the barrier's not there. I'm not gonna tell myself I shouldn't, you know, worry about it.

What I, what I do is I accept that. I accept the feeling I have about it. And then I say, okay, what is my behavior gonna be, uh, within this barrier? How do I move through it? Move around it to the best of my ability for the benefit of my student and keeping that in the top of our minds all the time. Um, and I think most [00:51:00] clinicians do that.

And sometimes that's why the barriers seem so tough is that we wanna work with people. We wanna work with kids who stutter and we would love not to have all this other stuff swirling around us, but keeping top of mind that the children who stutter and their parents are counting on us to, um, find ways around what's going on.

Um, I think I have a few, uh, When we do the talk, both sides of the table, like in presentations and, um, our little, what we call our dog and pony show. Um, I have like 10, I talk about the 10 barriers, right. And how to get around them. What I did today was try to synthesize three that we can do in a timeframe like this, that sort of absorb a lot of the others.

And I think one of the things we've already touched on is that when we come into a therapy, [00:52:00] uh, situation with, um, you know, kind of staying stuck in the, I don't know anything about stuttering, which we hear a lot from, from our colleagues. Um, if we stay stuck in a mindset that we don't know what to do, um, I think that's a barrier, an internal barrier because mindset matters and, um, there is a sort of a cycle that happens, like there's fear of the kid who stutters, even though it's not their fault. Right. It's fear because we don't know what to do or don't think we're good enough. That goes into guilt. That goes into shame. Right? That keeps us very stuck. You know, we start grabbing at things, desperate people do desperate things.

Lee said, well, that that's, that's what happens to us. We get into this desperation mode and we start pulling things off of, you know, different sites off the, you know, [00:53:00] internet don't get me started. And, um, 

[00:53:05] Kate Grandbois: you know, I was waiting for you to get up on that soapbox. 

[00:53:07] Nina Reeves: You're not gonna get up on it. Yeah, no, the internet, um, we don't have enough time for that.

Um, but 

 Let me just say that the internet can be a blessing and a curse because, um, sometimes there's some really good information.

You know, the national stuttering association, the British Stuttering association there is we'll, we'll put those links in the show page will send everything. But the idea is that's great information, but other people are out there Googling stuttering, which is because, you know, that's the curse side. That's the, that's the place where if we get desperate, someone may have said tapping the toe metro no, no, no, no, no. Metro, no, no, no, no, no. But the point is, is that somebody said, oh, this works, you know, and the kid is fluent except you can't carry it over. And it's. Yeah, but we get desperate [00:54:00] because we stay stuck in, I don't know enough about stuttering. And, um, so that's a roadblock. The way around that roadblock is to realize that we have that mindset to become self-aware that, that mindset leeches into our therapy and that the kid who stutters is seeing that they're seeing our discomfort, our uncomfortableness with, they think it's with them.

You know, I'm not sure that therapist didn't like Lee. I'm pretty sure prob more than likely. I'm telling myself a story that, that therapist didn't know how to help Lee. And it came across as I don't like you. I don't think maybe that was the case, but that can leach. And so I think our way around that is to realize, first of all, that it's happening and start to say to ourselves, You don't have to be a stuttering specialist to do fabulous stuttering therapy.

[00:55:00] And to say to ourselves, we've got a lot of what we need to do. Great therapy with people who stutter. Yes. We'll need to go get a little more so it's, it's not our fault that maybe we didn't get a good enough training. It, it does become our responsibility though, to go get more training. Yes. Like this right now, the things that you guys offer, this is you are doing the service that we cannot possibly do.

Like Scott says they can't do all of this in, in graduate school. And so we want them, we want everyone to do better, but we also wanna make sure that those , that those learning opportunities continue over time. But before we go on and say, we've gotta learn all about stuttering in a different way. We also have to say, I already know how to be a good therapist, a good clinician.

I know how to be empathetic. I know how to, [00:56:00] I know, um, how to talk to parents about difficult, um, situations that their children are facing. I know language, I know communication. I'm a communication specialist. I don't know just speech. I know communication. And every part of that comes into stuttering therapy because stuttering therapy is life lessons in communication, more than it is just about the stutter.

So keeping ourselves in that space of, um, you know, I don't know anything is the roadblock. And then realizing that we do know things that we can bring to the table and that we can have resources and become savvy consumers of what's out there for extra learning in stuttering specific issues. That's how we get around that roadblock.

[00:56:55] Kate Grandbois: I just wanna emphasize, I'm sorry, Amy. we're just, I'm feeling very [00:57:00] emphatic feelings about the, the component of being a savvy consumer of information. That's all I just wanted to highlight was that the internet, as you mentioned, blessing, and can be a blessing and a curse, but if you are listening and you're interested in seeking new additional information, particularly as it pertains to stuttering therapy, please be a savvy consumer, consider your source.

Um, and Instagram is fun, but it is, it is, it is a place to sift very carefully through information. And that's all I'll say, Amy, go ahead. 

Amy Wonkka: I, I just wanted to 

pipe in about something different that I feel comes up every time we talk to you, Nina. And that is also that yes, we know, we know all of these things about being a therapist, but also the pieces that we are talking about, um, in terms of being relational with our clients and building trust and incorporating their values.

These are also things that are not unique to stuttering. These are important things that we should be doing. We should be [00:58:00] thinking about how, the little things that we're doing, what those messages are communicating to all of our clients. So I think it, it goes both ways. You know, we, we have all of these skills as clinician and likewise, all of these skills that we've been talking about today, we should be reflecting on.

Everybody, everybody who we are, who we're supporting. So I just, I feel like every time I talk to you, I'm like this is universally applicable stuff. Um, so just my, my chance to say that.

[00:58:26] Nina Reeves: Yeah. And, and of course, you know, that piggybacks on the idea that stuttering therapy is life therapy and, and so many of the things that we're going to talk to talk about with people who stutter, um, are about communication and being in the world and being vulnerable and being authentic.

Okay. Because, you know, there are roadblocks about authenticity. I can have managed fluency, but am I being authentically communicating spontaneously and freely? Or am I feeling [00:59:00] like I have to do it in the ableist perspective? Like an able bodied, able speeched, uh, person who doesn't stutter. And so, yeah, we could do a whole nother one on that topic.

Uh, you know, Some other time 

[00:59:16] Lee Reeves: and, and I think basically still understanding that stuttering is, is, um, again, going back to saying that it's, it's rather difficult to explain and understand to, to explain to people don't stutter, but you know, the fact that there are those of us who have significant interruptions in our speech, um, significant, like I used to, but have a carelessness about the, uh, opinions of others.

I mean, they, they could care less about what other folks think. And then there are those of us who have very little overt stuttering, you know, um, that so, so mild that we can hide it. We call that covert and yet we have incredible. Um, [01:00:00] uh, emotional impact from that, we are so afraid those of us that, that, that are in that category.

We don't have a lot of, uh, observable behavior, but this under the surface stuff is incredible. It can be very incapacitating and very debilitating. So we have those two, two continuums that are in operation at the same time. And each of us falls somewhere on that continuum. None of us fall at the same place.

Part of it is understanding those two aspects of stuttering. And the way to, to, to, to help manage that I think is to, is to learn and, and to understand that, but, and I agree with you, it's not just about stuttering, uh, and your scope of practice is so large that it's, you know, uh, it would be inappropriate to blame the speech pathologist for not having that kind of knowledge to not being the expert.

Um, it's, it's not your fault. Um, it, but it is your [01:01:00] responsibility. I think that when you run across, uh, an individual who stutters and you haven't had that training, or you haven't had that in a while, uh, to, um, go out and get some, um, good information. 

[01:01:14] Nina Reeves: Yeah. And, and you know that, uh, it brings us to this the second, um, uh, sort of potential roadblock is that, and we've already discussed it.

So I'll, I'll, I'll sort of highlight it and move on the idea that semantics matters, how we talk about stuttering matters. And so the roadblock of we've been taught that, you know, don't even say the word stuttering, use the word disfluency disfluency, right? That's stigmatizing that in itself is stigmatizing and awfulizing stuttering.

Right? Cause if you can't even say the word, then, you know, it must be pretty bad. And so we've gotta get away from that and we've gotta [01:02:00] understand that semantics matters, it, they didn't have a bad day yesterday or a horrible time. Right. Let's get into descriptive. What does that mean? Oh, that there was more stuckness.

I had more times I got, uh, I got stuck or I've got stuck bigger. And how we talk about it with the child who stutters internally as well, and with the people around that child or that person who stutters, um, we are the model. Okay. We can't just say it's okay to stutter and then go wait a second. That one was bumpy.

Let's make it smooth. Hello? Like, 

Kate Grandbois: that's such a good example. 

Nina Reeves: That's just words, right? We have to say it's okay to stutter. Believe it's okay to stutter and exude that it's okay to stutter by what we say and what we do in therapy, that stuttering is not the problem. And fluency is not the [01:03:00] prize. Right.

Because somehow it feels. In the old days, fluency was the prize. Like we were, you know, let's focus on that fluency. And so that is the change in the mindset and the, um, paradigm shift that we're all going, you know, neurodiversity, you know, we talk verbal diversity, stuttering is verbal diversity. And that doesn't mean that people who stutter don't need support from a good qualified, caring, stuttering clinician, or clinician who works with stuttering.

It means that, um, it's okay to stutter and it's okay for us to be there as part of the team. And so, as we think about that, um, understanding the messages, the, the simple way around, I shouldn't say simple, but there's really one way around the roadblock of understanding the [01:04:00] messages that we're sending that are unintended.

We just need to be more mindful of our discussions, more mindful of the words we use, the way we talk about it and the way we describe it. and I'm gonna, I think I'll just wrap up the, the, the roadblock part, um, with, um, something that has been, I think, replete throughout this entire discussion is that there's a roadblock that we think, um, that re that does definitely relates to roadblock number one, which is our thought that we don't know enough about stuttering is that we need a programmed approach, you know, is that we need somebody to tell us what to do in therapy.

We wanna be doers instead of be-ers. I wanna be with my students in, in therapy. I don't need to do something all the time. Like what's step one, step two, step three. And that mindset is a roadblock that somebody has to tell me what to do, uh, becomes, [01:05:00] let me desperately search the internet for someone who can do,

Um, I think I just posted on our Instagram page the other day. Any, any time somebody says, you know, I've got easy 1, 2, 3 idea of how you can do therapy. I want you to run the other way. I know it's trying to do a surface, uh, and it's probably click bait and maybe it's not easy. 1, 2, 3, when you get there.

But the point is, is that easy 1, 2, 3 is not encompassing all of the experience of stuttering. I guarantee it. And so we want ourselves to, um, look for, um, as Scott and I have always said, when we started writing books together, the, the working title of our first book was the thinking clinicians guide to stuttering.

And that's how we've worked. All of our, all of the things you see on our website, all of the things that we [01:06:00] offer in, in social media and in our clinical guides is that this is not a programmed approach, but it's a framework from which you can then problem solve on your own. For the individual as Lee was just talking about, for the individual person that you have, the individual family dynamic that that person is working in communicating within.

And so we want that to be something that, um, clinicians can feel like they have permission to do. You know, program guides are fine, as long as we don't just give our brains over to them, it's it. We wanna know why we're doing what we're doing, that principle behind the practice, so that when you know, you've got something there that, and you go to page 12 and page 13, you know, oh, no way.

It's not working well, why? Right. That's that framework, that problem solving. So we wanna [01:07:00] give, uh, we wanna give ourselves as clinicians a way to say, um, I know the underlying principle, I know why I'm doing what I'm doing. The, how will appear, how to do it is the art of therapy. You get your science and that's the why.

Right. And the, how is gonna appear. 

[01:07:21] Lee Reeves: You know, I think that, um, that is so true. And, and I would say that, um, experiential learning, um, in terms of long term out outcomes and things of that nature, I think experiential learning adds to the knowledge and skillset that you learn didactically and you learn in graduate school.

Experiential learning helps the clinician to understand the phenomena of stuttering or more than just the definition of stuttering. And if a clinician does that, if they allow themselves to learn with [01:08:00] individuals or from in individuals who stutter immerse, if you can, if not get that experiential learning so that you have an understanding of the phenomena, then.

You can be the one, you can be the clinician, you can be the therapist that guys like me, 20, 30 years later, look back on and say, you know, I don't really remember her name very much maybe, or a lot of things we did, but she really made a difference in my life. That's what I think, um, can lead to long term outcomes.

[01:08:36] Kate Grandbois: Everything that you've both said is so powerful. And every time we talk to you, I feel like there's hours and hours of more conversation to be had, which is why you have a very robust platform where there are a lot of additional resources and we will list all of those resources in the show notes for people who do wanna learn more.

Um, I shameless plug for a framework. We love a good framework. Frameworks are [01:09:00] wonderful tools for being flexible, being able to customize interventions. They give you footholds to help digest and navigate through lots of information, um, help you problem solve. So it's just another, just plug for a good framework.

We love a good framework. And before we wrap up, um, I just wanted to ask if you had any closing words of wisdom, any suggestions for anyone listening, who might wanna learn more. 

[01:09:32] Nina Reeves: Well, you know, um, I think we'll put as many resources as we possibly can out there. Um, uh, in the, in the show notes and things, because I, my, my biggest thing is we can never cover in a small amount of time, everything that a clinician wants to know and hear and needs from the world of the stuttering community, but, um, [01:10:00] extra resources, things that are available are out there.

Just, we wanna make sure that you know, that they're there, there are organizations that live and breathe to give you things like here's experiential learning. In every way, shape and form in person online, all the different ways. Um, and I am going to, uh, my final thing would be to say, don't forget the caregivers, the parents, the teachers, the stakeholders that are surrounding this person that you're working with, um, make sure that they have that support as well, because they're not only on the journey with the child who stutters, but they're on their own separate journey in acceptance and understanding and maybe feeling guilty or maybe whatever it is that they're bringing to the table.

We wanna make sure that that is a part of what we do when we're in a therapeutic alliance. 

[01:10:58] Lee Reeves: And I [01:11:00] guess what I would say is to get connected, um, get connected if you want to, if you wanna learn, uh, and about the experience of stuttering, get connected with those who stutter. If there's a local chapter of the national stuttering association in your area, go to their meetings, they're open to everyone, not just people who stutter, but family members, speech language, pathologists, researchers, uh, community members employ.

It doesn't matter. The only thing that that, that we request is that you take your therapeutic hat off and come as a human being, come to learn and to share your own experiences and, um, uh, and to learn from others. If you wanna know what it feels like, and to, to live with the stuttering go to a support group, um, meeting and not just one go to several.

If you have the opportunity to go to, uh, an annual conference, uh, friends, uh, national study association, things like that. Join SIG four, if you wanna learn more, uh, about [01:12:00] stuttering as well. So I would just say, get connected, reach out and be open to learning. 

[01:12:08] Kate Grandbois: Those were, I don't think that we could possibly say anything to follow up.

Those, those, those closing remarks. We love having you here. Every time you come, as Amy said, everything you say is so applicable across the board to so much of what we do as clinicians, as human beings. We're so grateful for your time, and we're so glad that you were able to join us. And, um, we hope to have you back again soon.

Thanks again so much. 

[01:12:35] Nina Reeves: Thank you so much. Thank you guys. We appreciate it. Enjoyed it.

[01:12:39] Kate Grandbois: Thank you so much for joining us in today's episode, as always, you can use this episode for ASHA CEUs. You can also potentially use this episode for other credits, depending on the regulations of your governing body. To determine if this episode will count towards professional development in your area of study.

Please check in with your governing bodies or you can go to our website, [01:13:00] www.slpnerdcast.com all of the references and information listed throughout the course of the episode will be listed in the show notes. And as always, if you have any questions, please email us at info@slpnerdcast.com

Thank you so much for joining us and we hope to welcome you back here again soon.

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