Stuttering Problem and Emotional Intelligence

The ancient split between emotion and intelligence is over. "They are together again, this time under the rubric of emotional intelligence (EI)". The work of many outstanding neural scientists has shown that the mind consists of both thoughts and emotions. Both work together in concert, influencing reasoning and decision making. In order to succeed in stuttering intervention, an understanding of the critical link between thinking and feeling is necessary. Self-defeating and self-handicapping thoughts, abnormal physiological reactions, fear and anxiety, and low self-esteem may often negatively affect decision making and life choices in people who stutter (PWS). Therefore, it is only through addressing the power of the mind and feelings that lasting change in general well-being, including successful communication, can be achieved.

Although many leading authorities in the field of stuttering intervention have long presented their philosophy on psychotherapy and counseling approaches with clients who stutter, and have proposed desirable attributes for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working with PWS, many clinicians do not address the emotional aspects of stuttering, and lack the emotional competencies necessary to effectively treat PWS.

People with stuttering problems may quick test their emotional intelligence levels at

http://www.clarefy.com/eit

In order to further address the affective and cognitive aspects of clients who stutter, this writer modified Bar-On's (2000) model with ten EI abilities, which was designed to help people to deal effectively with pressures and demands of everyday life.

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Overcoming Fear and Tension in Stuttering - For School Children

Most children talk without much difficulty most of the time. It’s true that children hesitate and stumble over words at times, especially when under stress or fatigue, but they show little concern over such mistakes. What, then, makes your speech different and what can you do to help yourself? Invariably, the child who stutters overreacts to his mistakes. He fears they will occur, becomes tense and feels helpless. During the time that tension is so high, the flow of speech stops or will not start. As you continue to have these tense moments that become different from what normal speakers experience, fear increases to higher and higher levels. You come to dread and perhaps avoid speaking. Many stutterers learn that their greatest enemies are fear and tension. If the battle with stuttering is to be won, fear and tension must be gradually eliminated. Let’s look at some battle plans that have helped quite a few stutterers conquer the majority of their fears, eliminate excessive tensions, and find that speech in most situations can once again come easily.

Conquering Tension. You must learn to substitute easy, slower, more relaxed movements for rushed, tight, forced movements. Typical tension sites are your chest and breath, your throat and vocal cords, jaw, lips and tongue. The practice suggested here can make for success in reducing the fear that follows from blocked movements, so think of these as stages of therapy that you can “put together” for greater effect.

Choose some words that begin with sounds that you think of as being hard—those on which you often stutter. Speech normally begins with a relaxed, unconscious flow of breath. Practice sighing and letting voice come easily. You don’t make voice, it just happens if you will let it. The same is true of sounds you make with tongue and lips. Feel yourself gently close the lips for the “P” or move the tongue to form such sounds as “T” and “K,” then go ahead and say the rest of the word. Notice how little effort speaking takes. Fear has resulted in too much forcing to get words out. You must learn what ‘not forcing’ is, and practice until easy movements become habitual. First, practice at a very soft, almost silent level, then gradually at a normal voice level. Practice the movement gently to make the difficult word begin easier, then work on other words that begin with that same movement.

Assuming that you engage faithfully in daily practice, try a different sound each week. Fear of words lessens as you repeatedly prove to yourself you have a new, easy way of producing them that is becoming automatic. As you practice, be sure not to let the tongue, lips, vocal cords, or breath become tight or touch too hard. No word or speech movement requires conscious effort. Feel the relaxed easy movements into and out of words. Stop and begin the easy movements again for the next word series. Now, you are talking in phrases that are short and that you have confidence you can initiate, if you remember to use the easy beginning you have practiced. Remember, speech sounds better in short phrases with frequent pauses.

By conquering fear-arousal through learning to plan your approach, and then using the easy movements which keep tension from making you feel helpless, you are beginning to control stuttering rather than letting it rule you. Certain speaking situations become easier. At this point you must begin to integrate your success. That is, you are not just having good and bad days, you are creating some successes out of potential failure. That’s what building confidence is all about—and stutterers say time after time, “I talk better when I’m more confident.” When you have created a better performance, you can realistically feel more confidence. The model is then begun for turning ‘bad cycles’ into good ones. You are then able to turn your attention to fluency rather than frequent expectation of stuttering. One of our adult stutterers who successfully went through the above said, “Now I think more about my fluent successes, and does that ever help!”

You appreciate most in life those things you do for yourself. Getting over stuttering takes tremendous self-discipline and desire. We have found that just practicing easy movements without trying to reduce fear is not too successful, since high fear keeps you from remembering the new easier speech movements at the time when you most need to use them. Also, just trying to reduce fear without giving you something to do that is new — and that works — may simply allow fear to creep back into the situation very quickly. 

School Children who stutter should be encouraged to lead positive lives without fear and anxiety. They need psychological care and moral support.

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Children and coronavirus: what we know and don't know

As the number of Covid-19 cases rises worldwide, parents trying to protect their children from the disease can take solace in one thing: the disease has generally been milder in children.

“Its pretty clear from all of the data who is ending up in hospital and who is dying. Severe disease is very rare in children, Its not yet completely clear whether this is because children are not being infected as regularly or do they just not get sick. Some of these children have a large amount of virus but they weren’t very sick,” said Williams.

Last week, there was a paper released from the Chinese Centers of Disease Control looking at people getting sick and who they had come into contact with, which suggested the rates of infection in children are just as common as in adults. The new research also suggested that perhaps the virus could be shed in fecal matter from children.

“People have looked at this a lot for SARS-CoV2 in adults and children and have found viral RNA in the stool, its not currently clear what this means – the secretions from our nose, respiratory viruses go into our esophagus to be swallowed, happens constantly with respiratory viruses,” said Williams, noting that there is evidence of other respiratory viruses in the stools of infected individuals.

“The question is, can it be transmitted to others via fecal material? This is likely most relevant with kids with diapers. All of us can have low level experience exposure of fecal material by poor hand washing but the only time you’re really exposed to a lot of fecal material is when we are changing kids diapers,” said Williams

However just because genetic traces from viruses are found in fecal matter does not mean that contact with fecal matter can make people sick. The viruses could be dead meaning that they can no longer infect people, but can still be picked up.

“This is really in contrast to a virus like norovirus (cruise ship virus) where people shed billions of virus particles in their fecal material and its easily transmitted person to person,” said Williams.

To prove that virus from fecal material could actually infect others, scientists would need to culture it from fecal samples in a special biosafety containment area, but these experiments have not yet been done. So overall, should parents be reassured by this study?

“Yes, I think so. It’s a small study, but every large or small piece of data we are getting suggests kids don’t get severe disease from this virus, although they get infected at similar rates and they might be spreaders of the virus,” said Williams.

However, there are many unknowns about coronavirus, and research is ongoing. Here is what we know now.

Can children catch coronavirus?

Yes. They can be infected with and appear to be able to transmit coronavirus, even if they do not have symptoms. That is why it is important for children to practice social distancing and hand-washing, even if they do not appear ill.

How does coronavirus affect children?

It is generally believed to cause milder symptoms in children, but the specific impacts by age are becoming clearer as the outbreak goes on.

Much of what we know today is based on reports out of China, where the outbreak began. There 2.4% of all identified cases were in children under 19 years old. An even smaller number within this group of children had severe symptoms, 2.5%, or what the World Health Organization (WHO) described as “a very small proportion”. But more research is being done and a clearer picture is still emerging.

Why does coronavirus affect children differently?

That remains unknown. Dr Jay C Butler, deputy director of infectious disease at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said, “The phenomenon is very significant,” on a live-streamed show hosted by the Journal of the American Medical Association, but that the mechanisms are “really unknown”.

People aged 60 and older or with existing health conditions remain the most vulnerable to the coronavirus. That includes people with conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and chronic respiratory conditions, according to the WHO.


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