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“I got in late,” Alex said.
“I was up.”
“Dr.Woods?” Sasha interrupted. “Should we get started?”
“Yes,” Bexley replied and turned back to Alex to ask, “Are you staying?”
“If that’s all right with you.” Alex stood up from her chair.
“It has to be okay with the parents for you to be in the room during.”
“I can just stay out here.”
“Actually, Lewis is asking for you,” Sasha said of the little boy. “He was hoping you could be in his session today.”
Alex smiled and asked Bexley, “Is that okay with you?”
“Sure,” she replied.
They went into Lewis’s room first, and he seemed genuinely excited that Alex was there. He even asked her to participate in one of the exercises. The session went well. Sasha did great, and Bexley coached her a bit, too, but not much because she’d clearly been doing the work outside of the classroom and the program.
After the session, Lewis and Alex took a few steps away from Bexley and the boy’s mother.
“Dr.Woods, I want to make sure we’re doing everything we can at home with Lewis. I’m worried we’re contributing to this,” Lewis’s mother said.
“We know there is a genetic component to stuttering,” Bexley admitted. “The origins of his stuttering are likely related to the way his brain developed neural pathways for speech and language. When Lewis was three and four, he went through this rapid development that we call the ‘language explosion.’ This is when their vocabulary grows almost too quickly for their brain to keep up. Sometimes, children develop a stutter then. It’s not your fault. It’s not Lewis’s fault. If you keep doing what we’ve talked about at home and we keep working with him here, I believe we’ll make progress. Has he still been exhibiting any of those escape behaviors we talked about? The purposeful eye blinking, head nodding, excessive use of filler words, or any avoidance behaviors? Anything you’ve noticed would help.”
“Not as much, no. He still stutters more around my husband than around me, though,” the woman replied.
“Tell your husband to make sure to be very patient with Lewis. He needs to do more listening than talking and to talk slowly so Lewis can catch up and then have enough time to respond. It’s likely that he needs to praise Lewis more when he speaks smoothly and gets through a sentence without a stutter. Lewis is still young enough that we can use this praise method with him. The more you celebrate him, the less nervous and anxious he’s going to be.”
“Can I ask my husband to come to one of these sessions? I think he’ll take it better coming from a doctor.”
“Of course,” Bexley replied. “He can come with you any time. I’d love to meet with him. It’s going to take all of us to help Lewis through this. I’m also happy to email or talk to any of his teachers to make sure they know the techniques we’re using here. Appropriate praise from them would really help, and I’d like to make sure they’re not asking him to read out loud in class, at least for the time being. He’s very early in his plan, and kids picking on him in class can set him back.”
“I can get you their information,” Lewis’s mother said. “Thank you.” She smiled warmly at Bexley.
“No problem,” Bexley replied. “Hey, Lewis,” she said, smiling down at the boy. “You did a great job today. Did you pick out a sticker?”
“I get a sticker?” he asked clearly.
“Yes, you do. There’s a box over there.” Bexley pointed to the box of stickers she’d bought the other day. “Take your pick.”
“CanIhave a sticker?” Alex asked her.
“Did you do a good job in your session?” Bexley asked.
“Lewis, did I do a good job?” Alex asked him.
“You did great!” Lewis yelled happily.
Alex laughed and said, “Then, I think I get a sticker.”
Bexley laughed and motioned to the box. Alex went over to it with Lewis, and they stood there picking out stickers while Bexley went into the next room to talk to her other young patient about those Rs and Ss.
Once done, more stickers were passed around, and Bexley went into her own office to document some of what happened. Her students would document everything as well, but she always made sure to take notes as soon as she could after a session, just in case. When she finished, it was lunchtime, and she left the office to find only Alex standing in the room.
“I thoughtyoudeserved a sticker, too,” Alex told her before she walked over to Bexley and placed a sticker on her shirt just over the breast pocket.
