249: Navigating Conversations in Stuttering Therapy
Show Notes:
On this episode of SLP Coffee Talk, Hallie interviews Ashley and Eddie from Brown Cub Speech, a dynamic speech-language pathology team focused on stuttering therapy. Ashley, a pediatric SLP based in Kentucky, discusses her journey in working with children who stutter and her efforts in leading support groups and providing professional education. Eddie, a PhD candidate in speech pathology at the University of Tennessee, shares his unique perspective as both a clinician and a person who stutters. Together, they emphasize the importance of building trust, community engagement and the need for a bottom-up therapeutic approach, which prioritizes clients’ emotional experiences. They also discuss their upcoming professional development retreat, where they’ll share practical tools for SLPs to support clients more effectively.
Here's what we learned:
- Eddie’s life as a person who stutters gives him insight into clients’ needs beyond typical fluency goals.
- Engaging with stuttering communities enriches therapy by exposing clients to real-world challenges and shared experiences.
- Therapy benefits from addressing emotions and self-perception, not just fluency skills.
- Balancing goals between clients, families, and educators is key to creating meaningful progress.
- Integrating counseling into therapy helps clients open up, address deep-seated fears, and build resilience.
RESOURCES
Learn more about Ashley Cubberly and Eddie Brown | Brown Cub Speech
Instagram: @brown.cub.speech
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Learn more about Hallie Sherman and SLP Elevate:
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JOKE OF THE WEEK:
Q: What musical instrument is found in the bathroom?
A: A tuba toothpaste
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TRANSCRIPT
00:02:39 Hallie: Hey, hey, and welcome to another episode of SLP Coffee Talk. Today I have Ashley and Eddie here who are going to be presenting this week, if you're listening or in this episode airs on Monday, meaning the fourth, second, third, whatever day Monday is, the ninth is the Speech-to-Treat. Yes, six hours of professional development. Now for Ashley's CEs. So welcome to the show, Ashley and Eddie.
00:03:08 Hallie: So everyone listening who might not be familiar with you tell us a little bit about you and your journey to what you're doing here tonight.
00:03:23 Ashley: I'll take it.
00:03:24 Eddie: Okay, go for it.
00:03:25 Ashley: I'll take it. So I first got interested in speech therapy in general, right? Like we all do. And started the journey that we all have to take on that path. But when I was going into grad school at the University of Toledo, I realized that I wanted to have more of a focus on stuttering. So I've embraced that. I worked with a lot of people who stuttered before that and during grad school experiences. So I knew it was something that I wanted to have a special focus on when I started. I currently live in Littleville, Kentucky where we got a small fish pediatric practice there. And I do a lot of teaching and training then presentations about stuttering therapy in general and what we shall be focusing on.
00:04:17 Ashley: And I'm also just a general SLP as well, but a lot involved in stuttering. I co-lead the little whole NSA chapter, National Stuttering Association, which has been really fun to see that grow in our city and incorporate kids and teens and adults and everybody. Yeah.
00:04:38 Hallie: Very cool. And Eddie?
00:04:40 Eddie: Yeah, hi, I'm Eddie Brown. I am a speech language pathologist. How I got sort of driven in to the field is that I stutter. I started stuttering when I was about five. And then I was quickly put into SLP services for about 10 years. And I had a variety of experiences with SLPs who were all very, very kind-hearted people. But in hindsight, everything that I did was very fluently driven and working on tools. And I don't think that that was any fault to my SLPs. I just think that there was a lack of education around this counseling piece that Ashley and I will be talking about at the retreat.
00:05:40 Eddie: And that was what prompted me to get involved into speech language pathology was that it wasn't until I was a lot older that I had an SLP who came at it from a bottom-up approach, working on me and my thoughts and my… to feelings as it pertained to my voice rather than creating a voice that they write goals for and then I just do my tools to. So that's how I got sort of directed in towards the FLP realm. And then I worked at a local private practice here in Knoxville now for several years and I am a fourth year a PhD student at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center as well. And I do research in stuttering neurophysiology and also stuttering variability.
00:06:52 Eddie: And like Ashley, I'm also the chapter leader of the Knoxville National Stuttering Association Chapter 2. So I kind of wear several hats, but I have the biggest passion for translating what we are figuring out in our research to clinical practice and real team's on tools for other SLPs like ourselves.
00:07:25 Hallie: So amazing. I love that you both are so passionate and involved with not just the clients you work with, but also in the communities and things like that. Like that's so, so amazing. And that's something that everyone listening should be aware of that, that there's so much more, more impact than anything you can even think of. Can you share a little bit about your experience of why, like that's something that's so important for us to be, to even be a part of?
00:07:49 Ashley: Absolutely. I take this one because he's in that community.
00:07:54 Eddie: Yeah. But so you're asking why is it important for SLPs to have a role in our community out of that clinic setting? Yeah, I think it adds just this layer of reality to the experiences of stuttering. There is a big difference, I think than from the conversations had in a safe one-on-one clinic environment versus the daily tension of dealing with listener reactions and self-compassion and navigating the whole iceberg rather than just the top of the iceberg. And I think that SLPs who even want to have those other tools to do better are leading the way for this field taking a very sort of, like a right hand turn, but these are not conversations that SLPs were having 10, 20 years ago.
00:09:21 Eddie: And I think various platforms and people being able to connect about, you know, topics that for all, like a long time were very taboo. You know, so our research tells us that SLPs rage stuttering as a very, you know, fearful topic to, to try to, you know, treat. And then just even the language that's being fused around that, you know, treating something… are we treating something or are we just finding different ways like to have conversations about something. So it's really encouraging, I know, the amount of emails and texts that I get from SLPs wanting to look under the hood and to go further than just helping during their once a week half hour session with their kids.
00:10:20 Hallie: Love that, love that getting more involved and being more aware of the struggles and what's going on? Ashley, I want to share a little bit more about your experience on how you've really connected with your clients and found what works best with therapy for them.
00:10:37 Ashley: Yeah, kind of going off what Eddie said too, being involved in this stuttering community, you learn from the adults who stutter and it really helps inform your therapy with younger kids and stuff, because not everybody's experience is the same, but a lot of the things that adults tell me they experienced at a young age that they remember are things that my clients are currently going through. So it helps inform my therapy to bring up topics or subjects or broach things that I hadn't really thought to ask them about or check in with them about. So it's very helpful in that way. And then being able to connect those kids to other teens and adults is huge, especially for their families and getting everybody together changes so much for people and their experience with having, being someone who stutters or having that person who stutters in their family.
00:11:30 Ashley: So I think it's hugely impactful and it's something that I seek to do with everybody I work with. It's one of the first things that I'm putting in their head that they could meet other people who stutter and they have these events going on. Would you want to come or telling parents that that exists and it just gives you an opportunity to provide those resources that they might need. So that's huge.
00:11:55 Ashley: But Eddie also mentioned the bottom-up approach and how important that is when one works with people who stutter and being able to address the iceberg from the bottom-up and work on those feelings that are happening below the surface and how that speaker is experiencing communication versus how we as SLPs might be observing that communication to be, we don't really know because it's just an observation and we're not the person living that experience. So I think that if we're always leading with that in our in mind, then we're doing the right things.
00:12:39 Hallie: So can you explain how does like counseling fit into all this to dive deeper and find out what is not being shown or expressed, or if they're maybe not letting you know, how can we get them to trust us?
00:12:54 Eddie: Yeah, there's a lot there. I think that trust process is where we as SLPs have to deviate from a field that is typically very type A. If I have a [inaudible] come in and eat a burger, we're going to work on THs. I'm going to figure out, okay, we can do them at the syllable level. So now I've got goals for the next 10 weeks to go from syllable, single word, phrase. I've got the recipe book because I've done this for 200 other kids. And so far it's worked pretty well.
00:13:37 Eddie: But when we begin to talk to SLPs about building trust. That's sort of very nebulous in a way. What is trust for you might look different from trust for me. And I've had kiddos where that trust building has taken one session and then they're kind of bought in. I've had other kiddos where it's taken several weeks. So given that, you know, each person showing up is so individualized. We have to be all right with our data looking different from the other data that we are capable of taking into.
00:14:27 Eddie: But I think the first way to do that is using proper assessments to target and probe those thoughts, feelings and behaviors that make up our biggest part of the iceberg. And then, you know, having that data, having our evals, our own icebergs, and then going forward with that. And, you know, for me, with like the younger kiddos, I've always found it very joyful and sometimes difficult to begin talking about what does fear look like? What does fear feel like for you?
00:15:15 Eddie: But having some tools on hand where, hey, do we draw what your fear looks like? How about I draw what I fear? And I think it's really powerful saying, whatever I'm gonna ask you to do, I'm gonna be sitting right by you doing this with you. Showing, you know that, you know, vulnerability can go both ways. But yeah, it just first takes, I think, saying, okay, I know that this is not going to go the typical way with, you know, almost every other kiddo and that's okay. Like that only highlights that I'm wanting to provide the most, you know, personally tailored sessions to this individual. So hope I wasn't rambling there, sorry.
00:16:11 Hallie: No, great, I love that even. I've had students draw for me like what, you know, their stutter and feels like to them, but I never thought of like seers and like more just like other emotions. So like that's just like open-ended and also saying like the vulnerability and still like love that.
00:16:32 Ashley: Yeah, and what Eddie mentioned at the end, like keeping everything tailored to the person like that is very important, stuttering therapy too, because he mentioned our approach to being like, oh, we'll work on this because I know it's an area that they probably need to work on. Well, maybe that's not an area they're ready for change in. So figuring out and working with the person you're working with for what's most important to them right now and what do they feel like they can make changes towards right now.
00:17:05 Ashley: And we like in the retreat are going to talk about a lot of those challenging conversations you might have with kids or parents. And it's important to always keep there whatever challenges they perceive to be challenged right now as the forefront of everything you're doing, because that's where you want to create change for them.
00:17:26 Hallie: Yeah. That's a question I get asked often about like teachers and parents that want something completely different than what the child or student wants that they are working with. And who do you listen to? You know?
00:17:44 Eddie: You know, and we will, you know, highlight and have some role playing examples of, all right, it's been six weeks of us bringing our kiddos to you, we have been trusting you, but you haven't cured them yet. Like, what are we doing here? That can be a really difficult place for an SLP to be in of, okay, I'm doing what I know is right, but the kid is only coming here because they're being dropped off by the parent. Do the parent have buying in or the goals aligned by everyone who is invested here is stuttering acceptance and pride, something that has to happen from the get go?
00:18:42 Eddie: I mean, what are the conversations to make sure that everyone who's involved in this journey is seeing eye to eye? Because the reality is that we may see the kid for 30 minutes a week, one hour a week, but the majority, they're going to be with their parent or their guardian, their sibling or their teacher. So this is a multi-faceted team and it's worth dedicating some of that session time for everyone to be on the same page. Otherwise there's gonna be really difficult conversations down the road when the kid and I's goals are looking great. But the caregiver is asking, I'm not seeing any progress.
00:19:36 Hallie: Sounds so good. So good. And like what we were saying is years ago, you had a stuttering case. Here's some fluency enhancing strategies, let's go.
00:19:48 Eddie: I got a little.
00:19:50 Hallie: Right? Like, let's go.
00:19:52 Eddie: Right. Yeah. And then I think even like off of that, it's worth talking about with a caregiver or a kid, teen, whomever that, I'm not gonna put what I think is right on you. Our role is do no harm, I think, as healthcare providers. So I'm all right sharing with you, you saying like, hey, I need some tool for this specific situation. And then we can talk about the pros of that, the cons of that, and then tailor our time around how that tool can fit into our whole iceberg rather than just pulling out a popsicle stick and doing our easy onsets.
00:20:3 Eddie: Because some kiddos, some teens come in, you know, saying like, I want something to help me sometimes. And, you know, I think that's okay for them to want that. And as you know, providers have to share that and, and provide the education around that. So, but, you know, that's just kind of how I see things myself as someone who was, you know, every week was different, different tools. So the idea of tools is always this big pendulum nowadays, I think.
00:21:35 Hallie: Tools are always changing, right? What we are using for something is there's a new up and coming tool. And now we're looking at the iceberg and looking at the whole client in front of you is the new tool versus your some influence enhancing tools. So any last bit of advice, tips that you want to share with someone. Obviously you guys are gonna go a lot deeper in this topic on Saturday. And if you missed the speech retreat, what, you know, what were you doing? But any last bit of things you wanna share before we hop off here?
00:22:13 Ashley: I think the biggest piece of advice I usually try to give people is to not necessarily take perspective because you can't totally take the perspective of the kid, but the ability to have that mental flexibility of knowing it's not how you see things and it might not be how other people see things. That's the most important of how the person you're working with is seeing things and experiencing things and being able to address those thoughts and sneerings and those behaviors that might be a result of feeling some way is really important during therapy.
00:22:56 Ashley: So explore that any way you can that works for that person. Some people love to talk and people love to draw like Eddie with things and people love to create art in a different way. Maybe it's a poem, maybe you have to write stuff down to get it out. Everybody's different. So just finding whatever is going to work best for that person and trying to dive into those things. And I sometimes have had the experience where like they're just not going to open up and then you can keep trying and building that trust. Maybe it's gonna keep evolving and you can only do the best with what you have. And if you're seeking to learn more than you're doing the right thing.
00:23:37 Hallie: Love that. Any last tips Eddie that you want to share?
00:23:41 Eddie: I think just like off of that, you know, one of our big points for Saturday is providing some examples of like the thought process and like the problem solving and the languages used. They're giving some like practical tools about, okay, kid tells me this and it's a little heavy to handle. How can I put my possibly anxiety or uncomfortability with this topic of feelings and thoughts and provide something for them to keep us going forward.
00:24:26 Eddie: So our biggest goal is providing tools and role playing, giving some examples of, we can talk about these really, really crucial topics all day long, but at the end of the day, having some translational tools is, where the progress will be made. So.
00:24:55 Hallie: Love that. Thank you so much. I can't wait to learn so much more from you guys. You guys are amazing. Everyone head to the speechretreat.com or don't forget to send me an Instagram DM with word ‘retreat.' And I will send you information on how you can join us on November 9th to learn from you guys. I always make episodes with a joke because jokes build rapport and trust and it's a lot of fun. So, what musical instrument is found in the bathroom.
00:25:23 Eddie: Oh, my, my. We have to French horn. I don't know why.
00:25:29 Hallie: Well, it was a tuba toothpaste.
00:25:34 Eddie: That of them French horn.
00:25:37 Hallie: It's my dad jokes. They are corny. What they build are for so mine. And so that's everyone listening. Stay out of trouble. I will see you guys at the speech retreat and everyone listening, I will see you there.
00:25:56 Hallie: Thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of SLP Coffee Talk. It means the world to me that you're tuning in each and every week and getting the jolt of inspiration you need. You can find all of the links and information mentioned in this episode at my website, speechtimefun.com. Don't forget to follow the show so you don't miss any future episodes. And while you're there it would mean the world to me if you would take a few seconds and leave me an honest review. See you next week with another episode full of fun and inspiration from one SLP to another. Have fun guys.
