Description
Students take an active role in their therapy and develop fluent speech through motor, linguistic, and psychosocial changes. This comprehensive program spells out a clear therapy program and shows you how to tailor treatment to individual student needs.
Experienced and beginning clinicians love the Easy Does It series for its:
- Detailed explanation of therapy techniques
- Systematic lesson plans
- Clear goals and objectives
- Student practice activities and materials
- Take-home activities
Easy Does It for Fluency: Intermediate is a direct approach to therapy. The focus is on forward-flowing speech or word-initiation techniques, or both, depending on the needs of the student. The student takes an active role in identifying what he does when stuttering and determining what needs to be changed. Students are encouraged to verbalize goals and behaviors, self-monitor, and self-reinforce.
Three potential components of stuttering are addressed:
- Motor – address rate control and continuous phonation; learn to use bouncing, sliding, easy onsets, and light contacts
- Linguistic – activities emphasize language skills for problem-solving, informing, conversation, and expressing feelings; length and complexity of response are factored in
- Psychosocial – develop positive attitudes and reduce emotional reactions; desensitize to fluency disruptors
The program is organized around six levels of progress:
- Getting Ready: The student is educated about the process and expectations for therapy and decides whether to make a commitment to the therapeutic process
- Analyzing: The student differentiates easy disfluencies from stuttering in his own speech
- Modifying Speech Production: The student produces easy speech using forward flowing speech and/or word initiation techniques like bouncing, sliding, light contacts, and easy onsets
- Desensitizing: Fluency disruptors are introduced and the student learns to tolerate them while continuing to use easy speech
- Transferring: The student gradually moves from the use of easy speech in the therapy room to spontaneous speech in real-life situation outside the therapy room. Activities move in a hierarchy from easier to more difficult settings. Response length and complexity gradually increase. Pragmatic functions such as informing, controlling, and expressing feelings are addressed
- Maintaining: Therapy is phased out by gradually decreasing direct contact with the student
The student activity pages can be copied. The comprehensive program includes:
- Therapy Manual with 225 activities
- 218 page Materials Book
- Troubleshooting tips and suggestions for modifications
- Suggestions for support providers
- Attitudes and advocacy techniques
- Home assignments
- Home and school letters
