Office Hours: The Professor Is In

Stuttering and stress (not anxiety)

From: Peter Louw
Date: 19 Oct 2012
Time: 11:01:32 -0500
Remote Name: 196.23.50.162

Comments

Dear Panel, I have always wondered how stress - meaning the rate at which we live at any particular moment in time, as defined by the "father of stress studies", Dr Hans Selye, the Canadian biologist - fits in with stuttering. Some twenty years ago when the issue of stress and stuttering was discussed, SLPs would prefer to use the psychological term "anxiety", but these days more and more do seem to acknowledge that "stress", in the wider meaning as used by Selye, can play a major role in stuttering. For instance, a person may have high levels of stress without having feelings of anxiety. Yet many PWSs still do not seem to be aware of how stress impacts on their fluency. My questions are: Is stress the elephant in the stuttering room? And are stress studies part of the curriculum for SLPs and if not, should they be? Many thanks for your response and kind regards.

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Last changed: 10/22/12