Stuttering

vi Preface

Although we are emphasizing acceptance as particularly important for older individuals who stutter, we see stuttering in young children as a different issue. In my experience and according to my clinical data, early indirect or direct treatment of stuttering—rather than acceptance of it—is effective in eliminating stuttering or nearly so. Children younger than age 6, before they enter their first year of school, respond well to a parent- or caregiver based program of therapy managed by a dedicated stuttering clinician. Although we agree that clinicians need to stay alert for signs that a child’s feelings of shame, embarrassment, and fear that might in fact be triggered by a focus on fluency, we believe working on fluency does not make such feelings inevitable. Thus, we give wings to this new edition of our stuttering textbook, with hope that it will help many who stutter and many who work with them! B ARRY G UITAR Professor Emeritus, University of Vermont

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