Podcast Transcript - Episode 39
SLP Toolkit Podcast, Episode 39, Transcript
\ \Click here to download the PDF version of the transcript
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Sarah (00:37):
\ \Well, hey Lisa!
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Lisa (00:38):
\ \How's it going, Sarah?
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Sarah (00:39):
\ \It's really wonderful--
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Lisa (00:40):
\ \I--
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Sarah (00:41):
\ \-- Actually.
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Lisa (00:42):
\ \I actually concur. It's always a wonderful day when we have a guest in the confessional.
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Sarah (00:47):
\ \I thought you were going to say it's always a wonderful day when you get to see my face.
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Lisa (00:50):
\ \I, um, have said that to myself, day after day after day in my mind and my journal, it never gets old--
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Sarah (00:57):
\ \No, never, but yes, it is always a good day when we have a guest, and a popular guest as well.
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Lisa (01:04):
\ \And a smart one, and a funny one, and a fun to kick back some cocktails with one.
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Sarah (01:08):
\ \Yup!
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Lisa (01:09):
\ \I love me some Nina Reeves, which is the person we have in the confessional today, and we were actually fortunate enough to meet Nina at our show (which is the Arizona Speech and Hearing Association) where Nina did a presentation and we were like “Oh my gosh, she has to come on SLP summit and be a part of that ride with us!”. So \[she\] presented for summit but then we've got to meet you at ASHA and TISHA and have had some texting back and forth that you think for whatever reason you shouldn't be doing, but we like to encourage!
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Nina (01:41)
\ \Yes!
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Lisa (01:42)
\ \Um, so, just so--if you have not heard of Nina, you may have heard of even, um, her writing duo partner, um, uh, Nina Reeves and Scott Yaris together, and the work that they do through stuttering therapy resources. So tons of publications, tons of--I mean, I feel like I could go on and on--
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Sarah (02:01)
\ \I know.
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Lisa (02:02)
\ \-- just about your bio and, you know. So I will just say kind of the highlight reel will be, um, that you are a board certified specialist in fluency disorders through ASHA, which to be a board certified specialist-- I’ve read that--
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Sarah (02:14)
\ \We still haven’t talked about that because I can't even imagine what that takes.
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Lisa (02:16)
\ \I remember reading it once because they have one that's just about like language and--
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Sarah (02:20)
\ \And there's the childhood one and yeah.
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Lisa (02:22)
\ \I just read it and I go “That's a lot of work and I'm going to say, I don't need to do that because that looked like a lot of work”. So I've mad props for those who do.
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Sarah
\ \So the point is, she's a big deal.
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Lisa
\ \A big deal, a sought after presenter, has even--and I know a couple years ago you got that award through, um, ASHA, which was like the certificate--it was a really long name--Certificate of Recognition for Outstanding Contributions in Preschool Through Grade 12 Education Settings. I really think like--should we just end it now? Like I feel like--
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Sarah (02:55)
\ \(Laughing) Conversation’s over.
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Lisa (02:56)
\ \Without further ado, Nina Reeves.
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(Overlapping Cheers and Welcomes From Sarah and Lisa)
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Nina (03:01):
\ \Good to be with you! I am double caffeinated, so watch out!
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Lisa (03:06)
\ \Same!
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Sarah (03:07):
\ \Oh, good, that's perfect. Lisa just finished a coffee, it's like 1:15 here. I have had two red bulls, so we're good. This is going to be high energy. (Overlapping Laughs) Can I make fun of the name of that award for just a minute?
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Nina (03:20):
\ \Please!
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Lisa (03:21)
\ \I love it! The longer it is the more important, clearly, it is.
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Nina (03:25):
\ \Right? Like the thing sounds like I got this little, you know, certificate of achievement. Like we graduated from speech therapy, you know, and it was like, um, I got the van Hattem award years before that, that's the--the foundation's award for public school. Uh, you know, people that do things, I guess. And then I get this ASHA one and it's like this long thing and I thought “Can't they just call this the ASHA Outstanding Schools, Service, Delivery award or something--”.
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Lisa (03:55):
\ \Something that's less than 19 words long. I think it's funny too.
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Sarah (03:58)
\ \It's very specific.
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Lisa (03:59)
\ \Whenever you think of things like that too, the funniest part of that is you know that there was a committee that just had angsted over what to call this and had many meetings and this is what they landed on and it makes me think of, there's a, uh, a community college here in the Phoenix area and up in Scottsdale and their school mascot is an artichoke. And I'm like, really? Like, so you went through a whole planning process and the artichoke is what you landed on? That's just a random kind of mascot. So that's what I think of this too, is like, that was not just accidental. That was a very intentional choice of titles.
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Speaker 3 (04:35):
\ \I’m totally going with the artichoke award from now on.
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(Overlapping laughter, one speaker says “That’s perfect”)
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Sarah (04:41):
\ \Let's just use that analogy.
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Nina (04:44):
\ \Hey, watch out. You'll see it on Instagram next week.
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Lisa (04:50):
\ \We should just start giving the artichoke award! I like it! We could name our own people that have outstanding achievements in public schools. We're going to start with ourselves.
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Sarah (04:59)
\ \As you should!
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Lisa (05:00)
\ \We’re gonna nominate Sarah and Lisa--
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Sarah (05:02)
\ \I should nominate you and you--you nominate me.
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Lisa (05:04)
\ \I like it.
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Sarah (05:04)
\ \Okay. Perfect.
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Nina (05:05):
\ \And I'll make sure they change the name of it before you guys get it.
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Sarah (05:08):
\ \Thank you. Thank you so much. So yeah, you're kind of a big deal, just a little bit, um, and Lisa said, we met you in person for the first time in ARSHA, but I had heard you speak before that. And then of course, intentionally went to that presentation. You were giving at ARSHA, um, one, because I just want to listen to you speak, but two, because we wanted to ask if you would ever consider doing a summit. And I remember we like tiptoed up to you afterwards and kind of waited nervously to talk to you. It's like such a fangirl kind of moment anyway, but then we're asking you to do something you’ve never heard of, and you were lovely from the--literally the first second we met you.
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Nina (05:45):
\ \Well, it sounded like so much fun and you guys were so wonderful. You came up as this little group and like “Would you please?” and “We're just starting out” and \[I was like\] “You bet, just give me a call!” and I actually wasn't sure you would ever call because you, you made it sound like it was so new. You weren't even sure you were gonna like move with it. And it was really such a great experience. And now it's like blown up--props to you guys.
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Sarah (06:10):
\ \Yeah, it is. It's--it is super cool. And, and we just talked about it recently, um, with Maricia and where you were talking about that, like, you know, we all--we--we had decided early on it. I mean, what's the worst thing that somebody says? No? Like, so we need to go for it. But at the same time it's like, how do you ask these people who are presenting, you know, nationally and even, I'm sure, probably worldwide?
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Lisa (06:31)
\ \And I'm sure \[are\] getting paid! We are asking you to volunteer on top of having zero relationship with us, having never heard maybe of the conference that--I mean, Summit now, it probably has more of a reputation, but this is probably what? Our second or third?
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Sarah (06:43)
\ \I think it was out second.
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Lisa (06:46)
\ \And so at that point, you know, not much of a reputation and then, you know, you don't know us from Adam. Oh, then please do it for free on top of all of that.
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Nina (06:58):
\ \I was happy to do it and I'm--I just love it. I think you asked me to come on to this podcast. I said, I would. I, my, I have a girlfriend who says, Oh, I'll just show up for a letter opening if you'll do it. And that's how I felt like you guys like the answer is it's, uh, yes.
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Sarah (07:14):
\ \Aw, we just love you.
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Nina (07:17)
\ \It's a mutual admiration society.
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Sarah (07:20):
\ \Good, good. I'm so glad. And we were telling you a little bit before too--Scott Yaris, \[who\] I have also heard speak in is, you know, is obviously just brilliant and wonderful too. So Scott, if you're listening to this, we do know that you are, you know, the other half of my favorite book, the Bible, all SLP should have the... School Aged Stuttering Guide? Is that what it’s called? Okay.
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Nina (07:40):
\ \Yeah. Therapy guide, practical guide. You got to get that word practical in there because we were a committee of two going “Wait, how are we going? How are they going to know know that this is a bunch of theory and no practice?”.
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Lisa (07:53)
\ \You should’ve add more words though!
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Nina (07:54)
\ \(Laughing) Well, you know, Scott Yaris really good at adding words! We laugh about, you know, he--if--if he can say it in three words, he'll make sure he uses 13.
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Lisa (08:03):
\ \The artichoke guide!
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Sarah (08:04):
\ \The artichoke guide! No, but you know, I've had this as honestly, a book everybody should have and any resource or something that will come up throughout this episode, I will link to in the show notes. Um, but I think that is why it resonates so much is because it is practical. So are your presentations. And then we were chatting a little before we started, \[before\] we hit, you know, hit record on this episode--I love what you guys are doing with social media. You are in the groups. If everybody listening is in that school-based group, they're there, they're answering questions, both Scott and Nina and that's really an amazing--I mean, I can't even imagine how busy you guys are, and the fact that you're giving so much to this field it is huge.
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Lisa (08:42)
\ \In the groups, but also in the schools! You're still working with clients and-slash students in the school setting, which, you know. To me, I've worked in a lot of different settings and there are definitely pros and cons to each, but I love the access that we have to kids in a school setting because they're there seven hours a day. And so even if you wanted to pop in and see them, it's just that the--the way that we can access them and also use our team to work together is just unparalleled to any other setting I've worked in.
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Nina (09:15):
\ \And, and that's the truth! And, and we were talking before the show that it's really important to know that the schools are where most kids are. If anybody's ever going to have services, it's going to be the public schools. And so it's really the true trenches of our profession. And, um, you know, I'm blessed at this point in my career to be able to just be on the stuttering side of things, to actually be in the schools, specializing in stuttering, which is unheard of. And it's been, it's been such a great ride. I don't think, um, I don't think I've ever done anything as important as, you know, be with my colleagues and try to raise the bar of therapy in the public schools.
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Sarah (10:00):
\ \I love that so much because, you know, that's the one thing I think all of us struggle with is that we don't feel like we get to specialize in any one area. And it's impossible to specialize in all of the areas that we--that we have to practice in the school setting. And so that's one thing I always wonder is, you know, is there a flaw maybe in the system and--and should there be specialists?
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Nina (10:25):
\ \Um, yeah, it's, it's a really big flaw, pretty big flaw. Um, you know, this is a systemic thing and public schools, we are the, um, Jack of All Trades and Master of None in so many ways, but we all do have that sort of specialization. Or I am--I really do a lot of that kind of therapy or I really am into those CEs. And I think that, um, organically in many districts I've watched, um, I've watched SLP sort of rise, and now they are the AAC SLPs that you go to. And even if they're not, even if that's not their title there, we self specialize many times, we just don't get paid for it and we don't have extra access. It's a lot of volunteer-ism in the public school therapy. And, um, I think that does us a disservice over time? It’s because, um, when they know that we will, jus--because I think we're that species? Of--that's, you know, the--the kind of people that go into speech language pathology and education in general, are there species that will do more with less and stay late and get up early and make sure that everything's done, even though they never get paid for it or recognized for it even.
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Lisa (11:52):
\ \Well, I'm--part of it is even, I think, the administration side of it too, because you can have districts that come on board even for a period of time, because you've got the right administrator at the helm that--and/or it's, your funding is flush for a certain period of time. And then the district will go through other times where again, whether it be turnover in staff where it's a different perspective that's in charge, or the funding dips and they look at what they can cut. But, you know, I even think about here locally--we have, um, in Scottsdale, they have the RTI program that Laurel Bruce did where they had, I think it was three SLPs that just provided RTI and collected data on working on articulation. And so it actually--they did show in workload and everything that it was effective and meaningful the district, but then it went away. Because then they were, they started reducing the numbers of SLPs in the district and the funding was drying up and the administrator changed. And so I think that happens too, that you could have something like a specialist maybe for a period of time, but then all of those other factors they're like, well, now everybody just needs to be a generalist now we need all hands on deck.
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Speaker 3 (12:59):
\ \Because I have seen TBI teams in schools. And I have always seen, like you said, AAC, we've always had an AAC specialist, um, on the, in the different, different districts I've worked in, I've seen autism teams before, but I have never seen the stuttering expert, the apraxia expert. Um, you know, I'm trying to think of all the other...
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Lisa (13:22):
\ \Well, I even think of feeding, feeding could be another one.
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Sarah (13:23):
\ \Yeah!
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Nina (13:24):
\ \Oh, wow. Yeah. And that's the one I always, I always sort of put as a--as a disclaimer that I--I have gotten to do a lot more stuttering than anything else. I, you know, um, \[was a\] generalist for most of my career, but now I get to specialize. But you don't want me to see a kid with a swallowing disorder cause they're going to choke and die. I literally have no skills whatsoever! I have to acknowledge when--I--I'm that old, that when I was in grad school, it wasn't even part of our profession. So I literally have had zero of it. And so ethically, number one, legally and ethically, you don't want me treating those kids. Um, but I think that's, that's the part where, you know, if we could get more specialists or those with enhanced learning and experience to be the go-to person in districts, I think, I mean, I've been doing it for a couple of decades now in different districts around the country. And every time we do it, um, people are thrilled and it works. And I train and mentor teams of other SLPs so that when I leave, it's not a vacuum.
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Lisa (14:38):
\ \Yeah, it's systemic. You're empowering other people with your amazing knowledge and that then they have the confidence and skills to move forward with implementation. It just--0t makes sense. But sadly too--
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Sarah (14:48):
\ \It makes sense because it's not like I'm trying to, um... population-wise, you know, the bulk of my case loads were artic and language. And probably in seven years I worked with two students that were stutters.
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Lisa (15:03):
\ \Right. So then even, I guess if you get the skills…
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Sarah (15:07):
\ \So why isn't there somebody on the team... that is, is able to provide that really quality service? And I think--and I think that's why we all panicked because I can't refer a student out when I don't feel super confident--I have to just wing it. And then, because I'm so busy and stressed and just in survival mode all the time, I really do just the best I can. Um, you know, and--and…
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Lisa (15:32)
\ \But knowing it's not the best for the kids.
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Sarah (15:33):
\ \Exactly! It's not the best--what that student needs. And that's a yucky feeling. None of us want that feeling. We're in this field for a reason and because we care and then we don't feel like we can offer everything we can. I will tell you one of the first presentations you did for summit or--or maybe it was another one I heard from you. \[It\] is where you kind of… you did give us permission to like--you do the best you can until you learn more. And then you do more. I mean, thank you. Maya Angelo also said that Nina Reeves and Maya Angelou, but it was alone. It's that same idea of… I did for the first time, like thinking, okay, like she understands that we don't all have this like breadth of knowledge like she does. And like it's okay. Baby steps.
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Nina (16:16):
\ \Absolutely. And in fact, you know, the, the idea is my--my biggest… my biggest regret in this entire profession is that my colleagues are struggling every day, working with kids who stutter, like, how does that still happen in this day and age? In--in--in our profession, how do we have Master's level people who feel like they're not--that they didn't get enough or even anything that really practically gets them out? And that's when they turn to, you know, things that aren't as good. Because they've got to have something and everybody feels so incredibly not good about that. No one SLPs like “Hey, I'm doing the best I can for 30 years with these kids!”. That's, you know. If you think you don't like a kid who stutters walking down the hall to your therapy room, you're not going to stay like that for 30 years. So that's what I've always said is give yourselves grace, um, it's not your fault if you didn't get the training? Right? But it, it, it is our responsibility to not be 30 years later going “Yeah, you know, I grabbed something off a Pinterest” or “I grabbed something off, you know”, and you don't know what it's from or who made it, or if it's evidence-based whatsoever and whether the evidence base is current or really old. And--but you're just drowning and, and no more time in our history than now. I mean, I am just, I am helping my colleagues hold the line. I'm helping my students hold the line, just so that we don't massively go backwards because everybody's just doing the best they can with what they have.
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Sarah (18:02):
\ \Yes. Yes. But I do, I love that. You said that about, we do have a responsibility though, to not stay there.
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Sarah (18:10):
\ \Ethically and professionally. And I don't--it's so funny though, that you do have those personality types though that learn it one way and just stick with it. And it's almost like they think that “Well, I've learned it and I've got all this experience behind me!”, but even if it's not experienced in a certain area, they just keep rolling with it versus, you know, Sarah and I always talk to you. I've been in the field over 20 years and Sarah it's been about 12. Right. And we're constantly thinking, like, I don't know. I always think of that. Uh, the Ozark show on Netflix where she says it very vulgarly, but she's like, I don't know shit about the F-bomb. But the way that she--
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Nina (18:49):
\ \Are you sure she didn’t drop the F-bomb? Are you sure she didn’t?
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Lisa (18:53):
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(Laughing) Never.
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Sarah (18:54)
\ \I’m just so ready for Nina to say the F-bomb.
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Lisa (18:55)
\ \Yeah--can you just say the words “the F-bomb? so we can promote this episode? That here, Nina Reeves dropped the F bomb, and then you can tell Scott Yaris, “I just wanted to let you know, you know, heads up, be prepared. I said the F-bomb on True Confessions”.
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Sarah (19:10):
\ \You’re gonna have to get that on recording, I want to see his face!
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Lisa (19:14):
\ \Do a Tik Tak! (Realizing, laughing) A Tik Tak--a Tik Tak!
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Sarah (19:18):
\ \I don’t know if--I don’t know if we, uh, Apple! I don't,-- don't know if I've said this yet in an episode, but, um, Apple took our podcast down for a while. And you could, if you had followed it already or--you know, you couldn't search for it, but if you already had it, you could still access it. But nobody else could search or find it and so I called--not called, you don't call Apple--I emailed them and I'm like “Where's our podcasts?”. And then they--they responded with “Um, we took it down because you don't have the little E next to it and there are episodes that are explicit.” And I was like “Oh... this might be the only podcast in our field that requires a little E.”. So anyway, that's why I had to put the little E next to it, just in case. So you can F-bomb away if you want to on this episode.
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Nina (20:04):
\ \Well, man, I just want to go back and listen to them all and figure out which ones were supposed to have the E!
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(Laughter)
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Lisa (20:10):
\ \Some of those are really ones!
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Sarah (20:11)
\ \Right! Exactly.
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Lisa (20:12)
\ \Okay, Nina, I'm recording you. You have to say the F-bomb.
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Nina (20:18):
\ \The F-Bomb.
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Lisa (20:20)
\ \Alright, we got it on camera, It's official!
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Nina (20:22):
\ \Do I need to lean it even farther?
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Sarah (20:29):
\ \So, you know, there's so many things we want to talk to you about. So it's not like, you know--and we would need like a three-day podcast to really go deep into things. But, um, for those listening who are like “Yes, this resonates with me. This is how I feel.”, where's the place to start? I mean, other than buying the School Aged Stuttering Therapy, A Practical Guide, um--
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Lisa (20:52)
\ \The stuttering artichoke guide.
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Sarah (20:53)
\ \(Laughing) Yes. Other than getting that, what do we get--what is one thing we need to do?
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Nina (20:58):
\ \Yeah. You could get the Early Stuttering Artichoke Guide, which is sold out--
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(Unintelligible overlapping chatter and laughter)
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Nina (21:08):
\ \No, I mean… to start well---I'll start, here's a confession: I got out of, um, my Master's degree and I was trained. I had two stuttering classes, 25 hours in stuttering clinical practicum, this is the old days, people, where it actually happened, and my professor in stuttering was a van Riperan trained guy who stutters. And I got out and I went to my first cornfield in Illinois, a little grade school--and I really should give this child free therapy for the rest of my life if I can find out where he is--and, you know, one kid who stutters. The K through eight, 300 kids. K through eight. Um, and I got in there and I knew we don't write, uh, therapy goals for percents of fluent speech. I knew, you know, don't let those kids think that their Sutter is not okay. I knew all of those things in my head and I get there. And this lady who had been there for 30 years before me had percents of fluent speech goals, and I kind of let my brain check out and go “Well, if she could do it…”, you know? and, and of course it worked not at all, and it's chasing a greased pig and it's a variable disorder. So they never made those goals over and over and over again. Um, and I dove into, I found out that I just didn't know enough. And I dove into things like the stuttering foundation. I bought all of the books because I didn't know what else to do. Right? I bought all of the books, and now they have the videos and, and, um, the DVD streaming live. I started there. That's what I did. Right? Um, it just felt like I needed to re-energize myself with making sure that I had more, all the time, you know? Just keep going. Because these kids, although there were very few during those years, I looked at those kids and said, they're counting on me, yeah? Above, above many of the kids, not, you know, I'm not trying to hierarchy who needs us the most, but above many of the kids in that, in that school. And in those years, these kids were really counting on me. And I thought, I can't just flip my way through this. I've got to get better. And then, you know, I went to CEEs and did all of those things. So there's a lot out there now, but if I gave anybody out one really good piece of advice, I'd say, start listening to people who stutter! The podcasts by people who stutter, Stutter Talk, and, um, you know, follow those people on Facebook and Instagram, the British stammering association will blow your socks off. Um, and nobody knows they exist! Right? And so, you know, unless you're in the stuttering community, um, it's, it's hard to know that this stuff exists and then just make sure that you're in a quality space because there's a lot of crap and I mean, crap.
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Lisa (24:23):
\ \A lot of pseudoscience out there. And then even, I think what's so interesting about what you're saying too is, I mean, just to give you a little background on myself too, I graduated in ‘97 and at that time fluency was not required. It wasn't required both in your clinical hours. It was just about--
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Sarah (24:35)
\ \I think I had a one day survey.
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(Overlapping, unintelligible speech between Lisa and Sarah)
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Lisa (24:39)
\ \-- adult hours period. And then for the--there was a fluency course, but at the university I was at, it was taught by a man that was a terrible professor. And…
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Sarah (24:53):
\ \You want to say his name?
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Lisa (24:55)
\ \I don't, but I will--just to give you an example of what I mean by a terrible professor. He taught phonetics, which is--was a required course. And I came in, they call them deficiencies back then I think they call it leveling now, but I had a different undergrad. And so I took his phonetics course and he would do things like, you know, draw the rounding symbol, like that little round w kind of looking thing and in front of a group of all women say “Oh, that kind of looks like a woman's ass!” or things like that. I mean, this is the kind of individual. And he said, things like this all the time. So sexist, just completely clueless. And so he was the person that also taught fluency. And I was like “I'm out. I would like to know about it--”
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Sarah (25:30):
\ \You didn't have any respect for him.
\ \\ \
Lisa (25:32):
\ \Well, I didn't have to take it. So I opted not to take it because I said, he's the teacher, I'm not taking it. So I never took the fluency course. And also, I think, you know, what's interesting about when you were in grad school is: I never thought I was going to work--I wasn't even sure about pediatrics period, let alone working--in a school and that's been the bulk of my career? So thinking of it from that perspective too, I got out and I didn't have the access, even when I--I am trying to think of my first kid with stuttering and same thing. I've maybe had two in my entire career. And at the time there was not the access to get CEUs, and even you had to go to a conference, well, I couldn't afford a conference, whether it be the national one where you to pay for all the travel and you know, how expensive it is in general, but now we are not in that boat. There is so--like, even like you said, social media, period, not just for stuttering, but I think of, you know, following Jenny Viewer on For Apraxia or Amy Graham on For Speech Sounds or whatever in their stories. People are highlighting what treatment looks like. So it's like, here is the information, here's what it looks like, and then also troubleshoot, you know, that whole process. So you learn a lot like that, or the courses that are aligned are online. It's just access is on a whole other level.
\ \\ \
Sarah (26:49)
\ \Right, you don’t have a lot of excuses to not learn anymore.
\ \\ \
Kisa (26:50):
\ \Exactly.
\ \\ \
Sarah (26:52):
\ \I think you just have to know you need to, and maybe we don't all know that?
\ \\ \
Lisa (26:57):
\ \And where the credible sources are like that. You have to make sure that, you know, when you are seeking knowledge, that how would you vet that? How would you…?
\ \\ \
Nina (27:05):
\ \Um, and you know, Oh gosh, that's a tough one because, um, I would vet that to make sure that I am looking for people who have, um, who have a breadth of knowledge, not a single knowledge. Okay? Not a one trick--if there's somebody out there, uh, do you want a program? You start everybody with this, this is how you do it. Then I would walk very quickly away just because I've been on the planet long enough to know, you know--I mean, I was back in the stages of low Vos therapy for kids with autism. I mean, talk about what the heck? And, you know, I mean, but that's what we had. And I, it wasn't a breadth of knowledge. It was a single, single thing. And making certain, you know--if, well, they're stuttering specialists now, you know? People who have, you know, spent their time effort, money lives, you know, becoming a part of this community, not just trying to, you know, get kids to stop stuttering, like really understanding that there is a stuttering community out there that, um, doesn't need more stigma.
\ \\ \
Lisa (28:20):
\ \Well, it's interesting that you say, I was just talking to Sarah about this the other day because, and I can't remember the account so I can't reference it, but I saw a post by a stutterer who was basically calling out SLPs who make products that say things like, um, “I'm diagnosing--Keep Talking, I'm Diagnosing You”. And so I thought that was so interesting. I had never even thought that how offensive that was until it actually was said. And so I think we're living in this kind of culture too, right now, where there are a lot of things that are coming to light. And so that's one of the things I was like “Oh my gosh, I can see how that is so offensive. And I never would have even gone there in my brain before”. So have you had experiences, like, whether it be just microaggressions in general that you've--that you've either seen or that you hope that therapists keep in mind as we're working with students, families, um, communicating with other professionals?
\ \\ \
Nina (29:18):
\ \Well, absolutely. You know, there's--there's a, there's a plethora of them, and they come at all different angles. I mean, the media is--the media sucks at this. I mean, they do things like, “Did I stutter?”. You know, “D-D-Did I stutter?” memes on your--on your phone? If you look up, um, a meme that you can put in, in one of your texts, there's like five or six “Did I stutters?” and, um, the idea of, uh, just the way we talk about stuttering. It makes people, you know, the--the stigma that surrounds it and the idea that, um, you know--I also am married to a guy who stutters and, um, my son stuttered for quite some time when he was little, I can't believe he moved through it cause I thought I'm spoiling to be the mom of a kid who stuttered for a really long time. But so this is very, you know, this is very personal. Um, but also I met my husband through the National Stuttering Association so I was already on that--on that trajectory. And you--you want to get somebody that really, you know, he's been an advocate for people who stutter for, you know, a long, long time and he's an advocate for SLPs and he wants to get Special Ed directors trained on what SLPs do. He would know. I mean, that's--and he's on the CFCC. I don't know if you guys know that, but my husband's on the CFCC for ASHA. He does--sometimes he does more for ASHA than I do.
\ \\ \
Lisa (30:57):
\ \Oh and I was telling Sarah, he sure does advocate for you too! And even like when you got that artichoke award, he personally had emailed not just Scott Yaris--but I thought that was so--I don't know if adorable is the right word, but just, I was like “Man, this man is passionate about his wife and what she does and wants her recognized. She deserves it.” and I just loved it.
\ \\ \
Sarah (31:17):
\ \It was adorable!
\ \\ \
Nina (31:19):
\ \Oh my gosh--I didn't know any of that stuff was going on! But you know, in--in that world we get up in the morning, we talk about stuttering, we go to bed, and we talk about stuttering. I mean, it's a pretty geeky space in this--in this house. But there's a lot of the microaggressions that get thrown at people who stutter and this misunderstanding of the disorder, but for speech pathologists, I think the biggest thing we have to think about is the idea that you can't say it's okay to stutter and make a goal for percent of fluent speech. I'm sorry. I know that might, you know, it might be like “But what am I going to write?”, but...
\ \\ \
Lisa (32:02):
\ \It's tricky to quantify, right? It's that--it's that pressure to quantify everything with a number, but so that's the easiest thing to go to, but not necessarily the most appropriate and not the only way to quantify!
\ \\ \
Sarah (32:16):
\ \So it's just like--it's a cheat way of writing a goal that we know we can take objective data, qualitative data for. And so I'm thinking in our heads, that's why we go there. But when you--you mentioned that a little bit, uh, I go to not writing those goals. And so I thought maybe that should have been the conversation, not where should we start? Where should we stop? And that's going to be the first place, stop writing goals that say the student will achieve X percentage of fluency. Stop doing that! And guess what SLP Toolkit it has to do? Take that out of the goal bank. I think it exists in the SLP Toolkit goal bank. So we will do that after this conversation, we will make sure those goals no longer exist there. But, um, I think that's huge because like, what you're saying is if we're writing goals that the student's going to be 98% fluent, we're saying it's not okay to stay.
\ \\ \
Nina (33:06):
\ \Absolutely. A hundred percent of the, the, the messages we send are never intentional. And they're never mean spirited. It's in--under the guise of helping and, and get--you know, you think about this. If you write a goal for 90% fluency, that means the kid had to stutter 10% of the time. Most of my kids don't stutter 10% of the time. Right? So they already met the goal before we showed up in therapy. And then you just keep writing the goal. I mean, over and over again, because if you take the data on Monday, he doesn't make it on Thursday. He did, but it was all false fluency or--or managed fluency. And--and it wasn't, maybe he avoided all the words! So he looked fluid on the outside. Yay, therapy works! Not really.
\ \\ \
Sarah (33:52):
\ \Right? And I think that's what--maybe that's my confession too, is where I do feel more insecure probably in my knowledge. Um, in one I, like I said, I think I had a one day seminar and I--I haven't worked with many students, um, who stutter. And so I think I--I didn't have, until I listened to your presentations, I don't think I had a good understanding of, I'm not trying to fix anything. This is not going away. I'm not going to dismiss him in two years after I learned all these amazing things. You know, it took me some time to learn that--that that's not the goal of therapy.
\ \\ \
Nina (34:33):
\ \And that's so amazing that you said that, and I appreciate you sharing it because I think that'll resonate with most of the people listening here. And again, it's, it's not exactly our fault that we don't have this information and nobody's sitting there going “Boy, I feel awesome!”. But one of the things you said--well, we'll circle back. I remember you said something a couple of minutes ago about, we don't know what--what questions to ask, or we don't know what we don't know. A quick, funny story: when I go into a district to work with them, we do what we call a competency. Um, we're going to take data and make sure that the board of directors or the board of education, knows this works. And so they all the SLPs fill out this, you know, where they feel like they are on these different rating scales in the different areas of stuttering therapy. And they rate themselves pretty honestly. And then we've had to explain so many times, the second data taking is after they've had, um, seminar after seminar and some consultations and we call it therapizing--When Miss Nina meets with you directly with your kid--and we do this therapy things, and then all of their scores went down because they found out that they didn't know things that they had rated themselves high on. Like, I know all of the techniques. Their techniques were slow down and take a deep breath and, you know, whatever. And they found out those, first of all, aren't techniques. And secondly, oh my gosh, there's so many other things to do in stuttering therapy, besides techniques. We had to explain why their competency slipped midstream, you know? And so--but that's--that's the truth of matter for all of us. For all of us. I wouldn't know what question to ask and dispatch if--if my life depends on.
\ \\ \
Sarah (36:23):
\ \Yes. And so again, give yourself some grace. I am going to give myself some grace. I'm not going to stay here, though. I'm going to--I'm going to keep learning and keep growing.
\ \\ \
Lisa (36:33)
\ \And the grace is the acknowledgement that grace is, you're doing what to self awareness, right? (Overlapping agreement) But even, like, understanding that self-awareness can change over time. Again, like even that example, I said about the, you know, I'm diagnosing you as you talk. And I was like, oh my gosh. Like, it makes so much sense now because something hit me in a way that had not previously maybe been presented like that. So I feel like from a therapy perspective, whether it be stuttering or anything--it could be a student that walks in your room and you're like, wow. I thought I knew everything about this andnd clearly, I don't know shit about F, like the girl from Ozark. Like where it's--you know, I just think that that's the nature of this field that we work in, which is actually kind of the beautiful thing. I feel like if you ever get to a point in this career where you feel like, you know, everything right there, I'm going to say, yeah--
\ \\ \
Sarah (37:20):
\ \Retire!
\ \\ \
Lisa (37:21):
\ \Right! Because you're not doing a service to your students because there is, there's no way to know everything about everything.
\ \\ \
Sarah
\ \We talk about imposter syndrome a lot. And almost like there's this negative connotation that’s surrounding that word of feeling like an imposter. And probably, you know, maybe, I mean, maybe there is for some people, but we're reading a book as part of our monthly book club and it's called Think Again by Adam Grant. And he talks a lot about confidence and impostor syndrome. And obviously too much confidence is a bad thing. Too much imposter syndrome is a bad thing. We want to be somewhere in the middle with that confident humility. And so imposter syndrome actually is a good thing to have, because it's what--it's showing you is that you do have awareness in what you don't know, and that maybe you need to get some more tools in your toolbox or do some more things, um, to help you be better at that. And so knowing the confident part being, you know you can, but the humility part being that you don't know at all, and that you need to.
\ \Lisa (38:17):
\ \You can learn. There's so many resources for you to grow and learn, but you just don't know what all right now. And I probably never will. Not even broadly.
\ \\ \
Nina (38:26):
\ \And that's okay! And that’s the good thing about us, and I think one of my--one of my posts just recently on Instagram and Facebook was, you know, change happens when you're uncomfortable. You have to be uncomfortable first for that self-awareness to go “Wait, my jeans don't fit.”. You know, or whatever it is.
\ \\ \
Lisa (38:45):
\ \We just don’t wear jeans around here! We (unintelligible).
\ \\ \
Nina (38:49):
\ \Um, but the truth, um--although you guys are doing--you're knocking it out of the park with the healthy eating thing I'm watching. Um, but I just feel like that's the truth. If you're not uncomfortable, you're not going to change. You're not going to go “Hey, I need to go on a journey!”. Um, nobody wants to be on that journey! But moving out of our comfort zones is never, you know, we face this with our kids in stuttering therapy, you know, moving out of comfort zones, um, is a scary thing. But knowing that staying comfortable for too long is not a good thing either.
\ \\ \
Sarah (39:25):
\ \Yes.
\ \\ \
Nina (39:27):
\ \Right? Because that means we're not growing.
\ \\ \
Sarah (39:28):
\ \You're not growing.
\ \\ \
Lisa (39:30):
\ \I think I had read something--well, I love Carol Dweck and that whole idea of growth mindset, which this is exactly what it is, but I loved that. You know, she talks about a growth mindset is the belief that you can develop your abilities through hard work, good strategies, input, help, and mentoring from others. It doesn't mean everyone's the same or that anyone can be Einstein, but it means everyone can get smarter. Everyone can grow. Everybody has that ability. And the only--I haven't--I used to talk to the students that I worked with that if, um, that it was okay to make mistakes and acknowledging that for them out loud, that I make mistakes, you make mistakes. And even they make mistakes. It's a good thing because I said--even think about if you're playing basketball and you're playing, even that, you know, the game horse that, you know, the whole idea, or even just shooting baskets from the free-throw line, the way your brain learns through mistakes, because it will say “Oh, that was a little too far to the left. I need to move it to the right. Oops. That was not enough force. I need to give it a little bit more force.” and so I think when we are honest with kids and honest with ourselves too, that mistakes are a good thing. That's not a catastrophic thing. It doesn't mean that you are incompetent. It actually means that you're growing as long as you learn from it.
\ \\ \
Sarah (40:39):
\ \I was gonna say, you’ve gotta learn from it.
\ \\ \
(Scattered agreeing)
\ \\ \
Nina (40:42):
\ \You gotta--you gotta do a little analization about how it all went down and you know, and I love--love me some Bernay Brown. Oh yeah. I mean, cause you know, that whole--that whole thing about hustling for worth--our kids are in that spot all the time. Our students are hustling for worth. And so sometimes I'm just like, it's okay to be messy. Right? We're going to be messy right here. This is the messy spot and it's okay. And it's--we're not supposed to be able to just, like, pull ourselves out of it really quickly. How about we process this without an intent, right? And just see what comes, what unfolds, because sometimes you learn, if you do it with too much intent, you're going again for a goal. And what if that's not the thing you're supposed to be learning right now? How about we just let it unfold and then find--find the steps along the way. Which is very challenging for kids because they are like always being told, you know, what's the next thing, what are you going to do? What's you know--we all are hunting for worth.
\ \\ \
Sarah (41:48):
\ \Yes. Yes. And I love that too. You--you have a whole section in the, um, the book about teaching kids to be problem solvers and critical thinkers. And I think that's kind of the approach, maybe even the common core standards and--and maybe teaching is going, I hope cause you know, the education system is pretty slow for change. Um, but, you know, I love the idea of teaching them to, um, you know, be able to problem solve--critical thinking skills and how to have a voice and how to advocate for themselves and confidence and all of those things! And so I did want to go back to that a little bit. You know, when you talked about most SLPs are probably--and myself would be included--thinking about the strategies that we need to teach that--that student, um, there's--we’ve got to back it up. It's not just, we're going to teach the strategies cancellation. We've got to go to the beginning and--and really talk about speech. Right? You always recommend that you, um, drawing the speech machine type thing, in their book, in his speech notebook. And then talking about, um, about what's going on in the inside with, with these individuals, correct? Like how they think and feel, and--
\ \\ \
Nina (43:00):
\ \It's that whole ICF model, which we're, which is in our ASHA Scope of Practice, you know, for your weekend reading, um, it's just that ICF model says, you know, function, reaction, environment, and impact. And we're supposed to be doing that with all of our kids, you know, and any student that you are that you're in relationship with, uh, it shouldn't just be about the function, the motor, the, the, the, the outward expression of the speech. It's gotta be more communication-based, it's gotta be about, are you reacting to your communication issue in a way that holds you back? And, you know, Scott's Oasis and all of the talk about, you know, making sure that we're looking at the negative impact on the quality of life and again, in IDEA, And this is another thing that confuses everybody in the public schools when we work through IDEA it's, academic, non-academic, and extracurricular communication. So this whole that thing he's raising his hand in class, or he's he talks in class, so he's doing, and he's getting A's so he's not eligible is a bunch of bull hockey. Right? You know, um, and you know, I don't want to make an E on this episode. And, um--
\ \\ \
Lisa (44:17):
\ \(Laughing) I already did, so don’t worry. (Unintelligible, overlapping speech) Nina said the F-bomb earlier!
\ \\ \
Speaker 3 (44:19):
\ \That's true. Now we have an E. I feel like that's the thing--is that people don't understand that this is--this is about the whole kid. And we were trained so much in our profession, in the older days, you know, it was re--referral, assessment, tools and, um, we went right for easy start. We went for the fluency tools, um, and someday, you know, over a cocktail at TISHA someday or ASHA, I'll talk to you about my soap box about the word "Tool" now, but, um--
\ \\ \
Sarah: (44:55)
\ \What are we gonna, what are we gonna change?
\ \\ \
Lisa: (44:59)
\ \Yeah, what are we going to change to? SLP What Kit?
\ \\ \
(Overlapping chatter, laughter, and commentary, unintelligible)
\ \\ \
Lisa (45:09):
\ \What's the safe word!
\ \\ \
Nina (45:11):
\ \That's a whole ‘nother podcast with a big E on Instagram!
\ \\ \
Lisa (45:23):
\ \It’s artichoke!
\ \\ \
(More overlapping chatter and speaking, with mics cutting in and out)
\ \\ \
Nina (45:28):
\ \No guys, I was meaning the ideas when we make the little toolbox for kids--and this came directly from my husband--when Scott and I do our rewrites and our new versions in our books, um, that word is going to be--we're not going to say “tools” anymore. We're going to say strategies or techniques, but a SLP Technique Kit does not make it. No, but we're talking about the kids who stutter, especially, because my husband gave us the perspective of “Every time you say tools, I feel like you're going to fix me.”. Oh my gosh! See, listening to a person who stutters, you know, and get that experiential learning. And, and of course for 25 years, I did not mean to send \[that message\], you know, and he said “Now, Nina, not every kid you've ever said the word tools to thought ‘Oh, she needs to fix me.”. You know what--he said, just, there may be some kids and you just got to think so it's that unintended message. And semantics matter, that's like the microaggressions of things like, you know, “Oh, you sounded so good. You didn't stutter at all!”.
\ \\ \
(Overlapping agreeal)
\ \\ \
Nina (46:38):
\ \And if you did, so that's praising fluent, see, and all of those things that--that we have done for centuries, um, you know, is part of the, where the stigma of stuttering comes from. And so, you know, we're working on new--we're working on an entire new series of books. We're going to have the activity book for each section of, of our, um, school-age guides. So how to start therapy? There's, you know, a whole activity book on that. And then the counseling and an activity book on that. So we're going to be coming out with lots of, lots of new things, and we're going to be really more cognizant of some of those messages, um, and make sure that our friends can feel comfortable knowing that they're giving a message of, um, you are okay exactly the way you are. And if you want some--if you want support and help to feel more free with your communication to feel easier communication--because strategies really are for easier communication, they are not for fluent speech. You know, if you want more flow, you know, easy onset, like contact that kind of stuff. If you want less struggle, the--all the Van Riper stuff and the pullouts and the cancellations and all of that, it's not about, it's not supposed to be about fluency, but that's how we were trained to present them. These are to help you not stutter.
\ \\ \
Lisa (48:12):
\ \Right! And stuttering and stutter and stutterer--those are not bad words.
\ \\ \
Nina (48:16):
\ \No, Nope. They're not the S-words. Right?
\ \\ \
Lisa (48:21):
\ \Right. And that's a shift in mindset too, where--and I know you've talked about this too, Sarah, where even thinking of--you know, we were trained to do person-first language, and that's not always the case.
\ \\ \
Sarah (48:31):
\ \Well, I actually am glad you just brought that up because whenever we're doing these podcast episodes, you know, it’s totally unscripted and we're just having this conversation. And so sometimes, you know, I, my brain moves faster than my mouth--um, I said “stutterer” earlier when referring to kids I've worked with, and then I noticed a little bit later, you said, um, “person who stutters” or “child who stutters”, using person first language. And I did have a moment of discomfort where I thought, “Oh shoot, Did I--Should I have said that? Is that okay to say?” you know, it was like, “I should’ve used child first language!”. So let's talk about that--Can we, for a second--
\ \\ \
Nina (49:04):
\ \Absolutely
\ \\ \
--About, I know obviously stuttering is not about a word, but when we were referring to individuals--
\ \\ \
Lisa (49:08):
\ \A person, yeah.
\ \\ \
Sarah (49:10):
\ \Then what, what is, um...
\ \\ \
Nina (49:14):
\ \Oh wow. You know, again, we don't want to do paralyzation through analyzation, but let's talk about that, um, for everything. I think person-first language is always a great idea. Um, but I have a husband who says “Call me a stutterer, as long as you call me for dinner.”--like, you know, he's like he could care less. And, um--
\ \\ \
Lisa (49:33)
\ \Because it's not stigmatized to stutter. Right? And it is a part of him.
\ \\ \
(49:36)
\ \Oh my gosh, that is absolutely right. (Overlapping agreeal) It’s his experience, He's okay with his stuttering. And so I think the obvious answer for all of us every time is ask the person that you're working with. Um, to say, you know, uh, you know, cause in the Oasis it says “How do you feel about being called a person who stutters?” and on that rating scale, you know, I don't like it, you know, um, on that Likert scale. And, um, but that's, some people find it part of their identity that they really appreciate, and other people think it's the worst thing. And so we just have to feel that out with the kids or the people that we're working with and say, you know, what do you prefer? Not that I--I don't actually call them anything in the therapy room. It's good for us to know so that we can help the people around them use the language that makes them feel at that moment in time, um, where they feel more comfortable.
\ \\ \
Sarah (50:40):
\ \Yes. I love that because it's ever-evolving and you know, I think a lot of, um, professionals have made those decisions along the way rather than the individual. And so I'm noticing a shift there, so I love that you said, ask them. Ask the person what they want, you know--
\ \\ \
Lisa (50:58):
\ \Funny--how we can have imposter syndrome and also be the expert at the same time? Like, let me tell you how you feel and what you should do, yet I feel like a total fraud and imposter. So let's sit on that for a minute. That is actually so funny when you say it out loud and really listen to that. And you're like “Oh, okay. Yeah, that does make sense. Maybe I could start to incorporate people from the community more to help better understand it”.
\ \\ \
Sarah (51:26):
\ \It's I mean, let's be really fair. How many--especially in the last year, A few years alone--how many moments I have held where I am just like, “What the hell is wrong with oyu? Why is it taking you so long to figure this stuff out? How did you never notice that before? How were you unaware? How were you so oblivious?”.
\ \\ \
Lisa (51:43):
\ \That's life though! I feel like that is, that is growth in life. The older we get, I mean, it's, you have more experiences and you meet more people and you learn more things and it's all about, you know, whether it be professionally or personally, having a growth mindset, recognizing you don't know everything and growing.
\ \\ \
Speaker 3 (52:02):
\ \Yes. I'm glad you mentioned the paralyzed--um, what, how, how did you say that?
\ \\ \
Nina (52:05):
\ \Paralyzation through analyzation.
\ \\ \
Sarah (52:07):
\ \Yes, because that, you know, there's this balance right? Where I am--I am actively learning and trying to grow and--and, you know, be a better human living in this world among humans. And, um, at the same time, it can be paralyzing at times where then I just, “I'm going to stop talking. I don't want to post any more on social media. I don't want to say the wrong thing.”. Even this podcast episode. I even like, like I said, there's moments of discomfort, you know, but we can't stop talking. We have to get uncomfortable.
\ \\ \
Lisa (52:32):
\ \Pausing for a minute, I think is okay. Because sometimes you just have to listen--
\ \\ \
Speaker 3 (52:38):
\ \For a minute, but sometimes I think I should just put myself in my bedroom.
\ \\ \
Speaker 2 (52:40):
\ \Yeah. You shouldn't, you shouldn’t pause forever, but I think that there are times whether it be that you're processing new information or you're listening to try to gain information that maybe, unless you're asking questions to--to further your understanding, but sometimes, you know, that that paralyzation is just--but it should be a temporary
\ \\ \
Sarah (52:56):
\ \And we should listen and let talk less know for sure that needs to happen.
\ \Nina (52:58)
\ \Yeah. And as a--as a species in speech, language pathology, I think one of the things that we had trained right out of us was the listening. I mean, unless somebody is talking in that therapy room, you know, you're not doing your job, let's get some stimulus response going in here, people!
\ \\ \
Lisa (53:16):
\ \Sarah and I have both gotten that input from supervisors independently in our careers that you do too much. You need to stop talking, allow for pauses for wait time. And we're like, what?
\ \\ \
Sarah (53:28):
\ \We just talked to--we had Eric Raj--Dr. Eric Raj on the podcast. And we mentioned you of course, because who doesn't. Um, and, uh, we talked all about that and--and I had told him that I recognized a theme throughout the episode where I--I hear him speak and share his examples, and he's very much a facilitator. Um, and--and less of trying to be the leader and trying to guide and trying to, you know, “This is what we're doing today, and I'm gonna teach you these things.”, he's very much listening.
\ \\ \
Lisa (53:58):
\ \Well, and I think facilitating is more guiding versus--because you're just trying to kind of like maybe give gentle nudges and listen to the information and synthesize it versus doing, which I think that's the--that's the hardest thing for us as we constantly want to do, whether it be speaking or--even I've worked in some schools where a student will have an instructional assistant and this, the IA wants to do everything for the kid because as an adult, I think that's what we do. We do things we want to, you know, and it's from that perspective of helping, but it, you know, it's, it's not helping that child to, to learn themselves and do for them.
\ \\ \
Nina (54:34):
\ \And that's the perfect example of--of things like people finishing the sentences of children who stutter, or “Don't worry, honey, you don't have to give the--the presentation in front of the class”, wait a second, I want to give the presentation in front of the class. Like, what are you talking about? But people are trying to help. And through that help, they are unabling. You know, they are, you know, there's a lot of, uh, feel, you know? I think I did, um, something, uh, with, well, I think it was an SLP Now episode way back where I said, um, you know, we've got to stop using fluent speech as the gold standard of communication because my--one of my posts recently was Fluent Speech Does Not Exist. Let's stop talking about it in that way because nobody's fluent.
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Speaker 2 (55:23):
\ \No, you thought about that. A long pause.
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Nina (55:29):
\ \Yeah. It's--it's like, no--nobody is totally fluent. Nope. Not everybody stutters. Cause that's another thing that people say to kids. That's pretty much a microaggression as well, if you think about it.
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Sarah (55:37):
\ \Oh, that everyone stutters?.
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Nina (55:39):
\
Yes. “Oh, don't worry, honey. Everybody stutters--” lie, fib, gab. The kid to the side's going “Yeah, no, no, no. I love you. Thanks for trying to help. But you don't know nothing,” you know? Um, we're all just fluent, but we don't all stutter. And so those kinds of things really come to light in therapy and you know that when we're trying to be, you know--I think it's because it's like misery loves company, so don't worry, honey, everybody does it.
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Lisa (56:12):
\ \You're not alone. And again, I think that comes from a good place, when you say “I here with you! And I, you know, I'm--I'm being empathetic!”, but you know, for that child where they're like, no, you're not. Probably, if you kind of think of your own personal selves with all been in a situation like that, or even I think it's so funny trying to--I had a pediatrician once that was, you could tell it never had a weight issue in her life that tried to tell my oldest child, you know, about “just eat less” and “just do this”. And I'm like looking at her thinking, you have never struggled. You don't know what that's like. Even if she did eat less, that's not like what this is about. And so we eventually moved to a pediatrician that I could tell--she did have a struggle. And I don't mean that in any way, I've had a struggle myself. I talk about--I talk about it openly, but I'm like, why should it be--where you can truly have empathy for this? You know? Like a male doctor is not going to know what it's like to deliver a child. I mean, like, there's just--you could maybe think you get it, but you don't. And so that's where I feel like we do that to our students or children that we work with too.
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Nina (57:14):
\ \And that’s what the listening is all about, let's listen to what their experience is, not what we thin their experience is, or what,you know, what seems to be their experience on the outside, but let's dig further. And, and the truth of the matter is, is that you don't have to be an SLP who stutters to understand this. You just have to be an SLP who's willing to understand it. Not just learn about it, not just know about it in your head, but to understand it at a deeper level, from the perspective of a person who stutters and the parents and the families, because there's nothing that a parent says or does that is weird when they say they want their child fixed. That's not weird. It's--we can't do it. Like we can't fix their kid, but, and so it scares us and we're like, Oh, that parent wants a fix. Of course, that parent wants a fix, their child is struggling.
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Lisa (58:08):
\ \Yeah. They don't want to see their child struggle. And that is the hardest thing as a--as a parent in any areas, you just want to--like even like when my kids would get in fights with friends, I'd be like “Oh, I just want to fix it. Or they have any problem.”. You just want to fix it because you don't want them to hurt!
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Sarah (58:20):
\ \That's perfect cause you just said, we just don't want our child to struggle. Well that I can help with. I can help with them! You know, being able to have more confidence and to be a more effective communicator. Sure. Let's do--let's do that! That's the goal. Right?
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Nina (58:35):
\ \Yeah. And the resiliency--resiliency never happens when people do things for you. Yeah? You won't bounce back. If people shelter you from hurt or harm too much, right? Then you never learn how to bounce back and kids who stutter, you know, there's a lot of--we do a lot of resiliency training in--in stuttering therapy. Um, not training as like “Here, let's learn resiliency!”, but there's a lot of “yet”? You know, a lot of ending everything with “yet”. I don't know that yet, I'm not ready for that yet, and the ideas are just to keep--keep that--that place open for yourself and make a space for your stutter. Because if you don't make a space for your stutter, then you're not going to want to communicate it authentically or freely in any situation.
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Lisa (59:30):
\ \This is so good! I know we could talk to you for literally six more hours, but I don't know if anyone would listen to that podcast because that would be a seven hour long podcast--
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Sarah (59:38):
\ \Or they could break it up into like 30 minutes!
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Lisa (59:41):
\ \30 minutes maybe! But it'd be like, you know, there, it's on for a month of commute.
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Sarah (59:46):
\ \Um, I think another really critically important thing is to talk about when we are ever going to be able to be together again.
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Lisa (59:51):
\ \I know! That’s--
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Sarah (59:53):
\ \Maybe next year?
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Lisa (59:54)
\ \Or maybe ASHA! We’re--we're still thinking we are likely going, we don't know if we'll exhibit, but we think we might be going--we're optimistic. We're optimistic that we will be going to ASHA in November.
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Sarah (01:00:03):
\ \\ \
We are optimistic that it will be in person in November in Washington, DC--are you optimistic?
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Nina (01:00:08):
\ \We are--we are similarly optimistic. Yes. Because, and we're actually--we're setting up a meeting between the four of us because our company is four people--husband, wife, husband, wife. Um, yeah, my husband's the treasurer, I do the social media, Scott does the, um, the website and you know, all of the other various hundreds and millions of things, names of books, and Scott's wife, Virginia is, uh, she runs all of the backend of the business and does our layout and design--
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Lisa (01:00:41):
\ \Maybe she's HR too, because she censors, I heard, the F bombs and things.
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Nina (01:00:47):
\ \Not censors! She just doesn’t--she just doesn't partake. (Unintelligible) And that's okay! You know, what, somebody’s got to hold the line!
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Lisa (01:00:57):
\ \Well, there's gotta be a line drawn.
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Sarah (01:00:59):
\ \We're still trying to find that person.
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Nina (01:01:02):
\ \Well, Virginia might need another part-time job somewhere.
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Lisa (01:01:06):
\ \She might want to work on SLP Strategy Kit in the future!
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Nina (01:01:13):
\ \Anyway, it's been--you guys are so much fun. I think we will see each other again. Um, I think--
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Lisa (01:01:21):
\ \We know we will see each other again, it's more about just when and hopefully sooner rather than later.
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(Overlapping agreeal)
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Nina (01:01:26):
\ \I got my first vaccine on Monday, I’m so excited. And so yeah, we will be together again. Um, and I think sooner, rather than later, we can only hope.
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Lisa (01:01:37):
\ \Can't wait.
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Sarah (01:01:39)
\ \We hope. Yes, we can--you are an absolute pleasure, such, um, a what's the word?
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Lisa (01:01:44):
\ \A wealth of information.
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Sarah (01:01:45):
\ \Yes. And, just your contribution to this field again--I know, I think we started that way, but just saying that, um, we are just so grateful for you. Thank you and Scott for giving us strategies. I almost just said to her--(overlapping agreeal)--to be able to, you know, feel more confident about what we are doing and providing the best support for the individuals we serve.
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Lisa (01:02:09):
\ \And if you didn't know when we started now, you know why Nina got the ASHA Certificate of Recognition for Outstanding Contributions in Preschool Through Grade 12 Education Settings, boom!
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Nina (01:02:21):
\ \They don’t give everybody that artichoke award!
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Lisa (01:02:25):
\ \Alright, we’ll see you soon, Nina. Bye-bye!
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Nina (01:02:28):
\ \Thanks, you guys.
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Sarah (01:02:19):
\ \Bye!
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