From Stigma to Strength: A Conversation with Dr. Ryan Pollard

In this episode, I am excited to share my conversation with Dr. Ryan Pollard from the University of Colorado. I invited Ryan on the show because I was fascinated by his work focused on supporting the emotional well-being of adolescents with communication disorders. Ryan had some great insights into supporting this population, and then our conversation broadened out into some really compelling insights about the intersection of communication disorders and mental health. We discussed important applications around the power of community, advocacy, and effective counseling techniques that can be integrated into speech therapy.  Our discussion gave me a whole new understanding of what it means to take a holistic approach toward empowering individuals and their families. 

Articles and Resources:

Dr. Pollard's Presentation on Supporting Adolescents with Communication Disorders

Interrupting Ableism in Stuttering Therapy and Research: Practical Suggestions

Early Maladaptive Schemas and Self-Stigma in People with Physical Disabilities: The Role of Self-Compassion and Psychological Flexibility

I launched the Speech, Language, and Therapy Podcast with a mission to develop a deep understanding of the connection between speech therapy and overall well-being, especially in the area of stuttering. Inspired by my guests, I founded Brouwer Therapy to translate these insights into action.If you would like more information about connecting with me and my private practice: www.brouwertherapy.com

Transcript

 , welcome to the show, Ryan. So glad you're here. 

 I am glad to be here. Awesome.  

Could you give us a little.

background and kind of what led you to focus on emotional support for children and adolescents with communication 

disorders?  Sure. So  I have  taught in  communication, just  Orders for now, I think I'm  going on 13 years now, 12 or 13 or so. And before I got into this field  my, my undergraduate  major was actually psychology.

So long, long time ago, I had ideas of. Being a clinical psychologist.  So like, that's kind of probably where it all began,  my guess  would be, um, that I, I, I eventually got into, to speech pathology after what, what I would call like good qualities. Successful stuttering therapy in my early twenties.

And that's what led me to this  field.    Uh, but I, I  always liked like second psychology  counts lane. And so. Through the years, I've been able to  kind of learn more. I've gone to some trainings. I've read some books and then bring more of that into my practice just through the years. Um, And then a few years ago, like five or six years back, we finally got a counseling  class for our graduate students at CU  Boulder.

Um, and then I was like, I want to teach it. I want to teach it. So I've been, been teaching that every year since then. And really that class helped me to  focus more on things I'm.  Interested in C areas that I needed to learn more and that was really the, the  sort of a catalyst for, for me focusing more like specifically on counseling in my practice. 

I love that.  It's so cool. That is such a cool combination.  I know recently you've been focusing on adolescents with communication disorders. Can you talk about some of the challenges that this population faces? 

Well, geez, uh, do we have all day here? These are, this is the most tumultuous time of my life. .    Adolescence, I think probably my My focus or my interest on that really took off  when I began to go work at Camp Say  which is a camp for kids who stutter.  And this was through like 2015  or so, so a few years back. Um, and then just be, be in that environment with all of these, you know, they go from like, Eight to 18.

So like broad span, uh, but, but a lot of those middle school,  high school age of kiddos and like really getting to,  to beat them, know them, like we would do groups and it'll just be here where they were and what they're. Their struggles specifically  with stuttering, but often they had    other things that they were dealing with  alongside the stuttering.

So, so just kind of that world. Um, I think really got me interested in that sort of formative period.  And I have always known it to be 

potentially a very. Fraught time for kids who stutter my, my, my specialty is stuttering. And so, um,  that's kind of where I've seen most of that, but it's true for.  Any condition that that we might be treating and like these are topics now  That I talk about things like shade is a huge one feeling shame for being a different  things like isolation like  feeling like  Like you're the only one dealing with this,  which is funny because like, that's true,  true, true for all  adolescents, regardless of if they have a disability or not, right?

Nobody gets my pain and my, you know,  my, you know, it's, it's, I'm alone in  But for kids with a disability, it's especially relevant to them. And then things like self stigma  these are all  hugely like  things that these kids are just beginning to really grapple with    and kind of how they learned to cope and to grapple with that  has far reaching impacts.

Yeah, exactly. And what I found really interesting is you, you, you're considering the stages of coping because coping is Healthy and coping is something that we need to do.  I found it really interesting. You were talking about the stages of coping. Can you talk a little bit more about that? 

Oh, sure. So, so that's a, a lot of that I've I've drawn from Luterman,  um, um. 

Text that, um, that's one of the, I, I, I, I guess most widely, um, reference text books for our field. I think, I think it's in its fifth or sixth  edition now. It's been out for quite  a while, but that's really helped me through the years to understand that clients, when they come to us are dealing the best that they know how  with what they're dealing with.

 And it took me a while to, to recognize that in clients that like where they are,  It  and how they're coping with their challenge. I need to know that because that'll  impact what we do in therapy. And that's equally true for  if we're talking about kids for for  their parents.   Parents cope to, uh,  And, and so that's been a great framework for me to,  to be, be thinking about when I meet a person, when I meet parents.

Like where are they are, are they still grappling with a new thing? You know, a new  diagdiagnosis, a new new challenge that, that there, there. Figuring out how to deal with and oftentimes they, you know, they cope through denial through it. It's just overwhelming they don't feel like they have the the wherewithal or the the ability to To true to truly deal with this head on and so they aren't and that's a Like that's a human response to, to, to adverse things.

 And then some of us, some people might be at a different  place. Some might be,  uh, more resisting  it. So they've gotten to where. They'll admit it. Yes, I've got this or my child's dealing with this, but we're going to beat this.  It's not permanent. You know, it's just a thing that we'll, we will overcome and then and then move on with our lives.

And so.  That's a different place to be in, especially for chronic conditions. So like long term things that you're not going to quote beat this,  because if it's a chronic thing, that means that you'll be dealing with this for a long time.  And so figuring out like where  people are and helping them make progress to.

What I would say are like more adaptive or more productive ways of coping. That's a, has been a helpful framework for, for me.  

That's so interesting. Actually, I'd love to just have you keep going on that in terms of how you, how you use that framework.  

Sure. So the  kind of the broad framework that's that Lütemann and others lay out  is kind of  denial, resistance,  affirmation, and then finally into And it's  also helpful to recognize that it's not linear, that like people don't just move in one direction and then they're finally get to a beautiful place and they're done. 

I wish that that were the case,  but it's not it's fluid  and people can make some progress and then, you know, it hits some rotor blocks or have things that.  Happen and then, and then shift, shift back to another way of coping. And so for, for me,  kind of, of a principle that's been useful has been thinking about what do clients or parents or both, what do they need to feel like they can, can do this feel.

Like they're able to, to cope well with, to live well with  whatever their  disability might be   helping them find ways to feel that,  that sort of empowerment and that,  um,  sometimes it's just knowledge, it's just learning more. Uh, uh, uh, uh,  uh, about it. Um,  uh, often that can help people feel more like, okay, I  understand it.

It's, you know, it's not, it's not, it's not.   Baffling to me   and that can foster that growth. Sometimes it's, you know, beating others who share that challenge and like feeling not so, so isolated in the, the,  uh,  experience.   It's all, it can be all kinds of things that help people to  kind of go from this is overwhelming.

I don't know how to cope with this. So I'm not going to, to, okay, I understand it. This is what I'm dealing with or what, what our family's doing with. To even, um,  I love clients in affirmation because then they're like, Hey, I'm like proud of this. I w I want to talk to people. I, I, you know, I want to be out there spreading the good word.

And like, those are fun,  fun clients   who are so empowered or, or feel so much.  Like they could do this, that they're helping others. They're, they are advocating, they're educating, that's a good place  to be.  

Yeah. Yeah.  Another interesting thing that I noticed in your presentation was normalization versus well being and I think that probably fits within this as well. Can you talk about that?  

Sure. 

So that's a concept I've come to a bit more recently in the past few years.   And a person who's written a lot on this and really eloquently,  is Chris  But there are  others in the sort of speech pathology world. We're all sort of talking about  this even  prior to sort of  this finding  It's way to the stuttering world.

 It, uh, that has been for a long time  talked about in the, the autism world. and then  probably even longer, the, the deaf, hard of hearing world,  uh, that goes back decades of these, of these concepts of.  Normalization in this context     means to see normal,   to kind of appear. 

And I'm using normal in quotes because that's a whole other thing of like, well, what's the normal, how do we define it? But like, this is what clients will tell you. Like, you know, I want to be normal. I want to, I, you know, I want, I want to fit a  in  especially for younger  people because when you're younger, Like, there's nothing worse than, than, than sticking out and, and, and having others see you as,   different and treat you differently.

And so this is the.  Incredibly strong, cultural, societal  push to just be normal, to not, to not be disabled, to not be different.  And that is, it,  it, it just permeates everything that we do.  And  I found it Very helpful and useful to help  clients kind of come into terms with that, to, to, to begin to, uh, uh, understand the, all of the reasons for why they want to be normal, for why it's so bad to, to, to, to not be right, to, to be,  to be different  to be seen as different. 

And then that leads to, to a lot of  kind of.  Exploration  and grappling with these societal undercurrents that they may not have been conscious of or able to kind of articulate, but they felt it. They know that,  like, they know that it's bad to talk differently to, you know, to struggle with reading, to to, to have a language impairment, right?

And then to have, to have all of these conditions that, that our  field treats  they understand that like. It,  that it is not a positive thing to have  these, these conditions. And so the push to at least appear normal is incredibly strong for both the clients and their parents. And so that's the normalization  piece of it.

And then the, the sort of the counter or the. Alternative would be well being. And so  in this context, like well being.  Is just feeling good about yourself. It is like, you know, it's literally well being. It is    I  enjoy communicating  and connecting with others just because it's enjoyable.  And because that's a human  drive.

And maybe I do it slightly differently than most people. Mm-Hmm. But I am okay with that. That's what I, I would call well,  wellbeing. Mm-Hmm.  it.  And that's a vastly different goal, I guess therapeutically speaking. Mm-Hmm. . Then how do I figure out how to seem normal to most people? Mm. Right. Mm-Hmm. . And so.

Like, that's, that's the history of the deaf, hard of hearing world.  That's the, the history of ABA  in the autism world.  How do we teach these normalizing  behaviors and so that they can pass. Um  baby, baby passed as quote, quote, normal. Right. And so that's now found its way into stuttering to like fluency focused treatment,  right?

How do I change the way that I speak so that I can seem like a normal  speaker? 

Yes. Yeah. Ryan, we need about five episodes on this, you know, uh, There's so much to unpack there with, uh, you know, like just the societal ableisms that you're talking about and, you know, going to that, you know, going to more of the well being, um, goals as opposed to the normalization.

I'm curious if you have like some examples of people that you've run into that where you've kind of seen some of this change or what you kind of see in people that  Um, you know, kind of get to more of that wellbeing perspective. 

 So yeah, so for my world is mostly  stuttering.  And so, yeah, yeah   people who kind of shift from thinking, I have to be fluent.  You know, for society to respect me, for, for people to think that I am competent for me to get a job, for me to get the date with that, that,   that girl.

Right. These are all of the like  normalization focused  reasons for, for why I might  be speaking differently, shifting that to, I just want to speak and just say what I want to and be comfortable while doing it. That's my goal.  That's a very different mindset than I, you know, I. I, I need to be fluent for X, Y, and Z.   

And I have seen that shift helps countless people to go from  the, like, have to do this to just want to be focused on, on well being and   freely speaking  and not feeling  pressure to.    To be fluent  other,   places I, I have met now more and more, uh, autistic  people    through the years. And so I, I've kind of gotten to.

Understand  some of that community better. And I've heard from several people that like  once they were able to kind of accept that they are different, that they do think differently, that their brains are, um, diverse,  um, that help them shift from the. You know, I, I need to, to learn these tools so that I don't seem weird to people, right?

To, I needed to learn to advocate for what I, I need, right? I needed to learn to, to like be authentically me. And that's a much different place to  to come from. I've met some. Uh, autistic people who have said some of these like skills and these tools that they've learned have been very, uh,  helpful for sort of learning to navigate the neurotypical world,  but Like you can still, have that and have   a prideful identity in who you are as an autistic    um, person.

And so that's a shift right from, from strictly normalizing, you know, I got to learn how to make good eye contact so that people, right, maybe you don't,  maybe people can, can learn to just.  Accept that you don't like to look at them and that's fine. Yeah. And so that's a shift there too.  I've met students with  dyslexia   who've, who've really struggled with   like not wanting others to know  that reading and writing is difficult for them.

And so, you know, they would refuse accommodations,  not go out of the room to take a test where they, they needed that and they legally add the right to it because of 

that shame and that self stigma around being different. And so shifting that to no, I need to recognize that I need. These these accommodations for me to do well, and so I'm going to take them  And I'm not gonna be a ashamed  Of it right. I'm not gonna be Ashamed that I am  Doing an audio book for my studying rather than reading it.

I'm not gonna be Ashamed, you know that I'm getting testing accommodation  or  Or note, note taking  accommodations   shifting to a wellbeing mindset that like, that's what I need for me to do my best.  That's been very good to see that. 

Yeah. Yeah.  As you've said, uh, previously, a shift from stigma to empowerment.

Mm-Hmm.  . Mm-Hmm. . It's such a, it's,  yeah, well, I'm gonna have to edit this out, right? Cause I'm just dumbfounded. I'm just, uh, my mind is going in all kinds of different ways in terms of work. I love it. Um, I love it so much. And, um, and I think this is really valuable for people to consider and to implement and to take steps towards this.

What are some steps, you know, kind of everyday or practical steps that you might recommend? Um,  People that are support system for, you know, individuals with communication disorders that they can can help make this shift towards on this process. 

Oh, yeah, that's a good question.  There's a, a lot of  things that,  that a  person  and I always say client or their family to be. 

'cause I really believe that, especially for like younger kiddos and  even teens   the family. Like needs to kind of get this also  they need to be on board and understand, you know, these, these concepts  or is it going to be really tough for a client to like hear this and work on this and then go, go back into an environment that's very much pushing normalization  you know, fix it.

Be fixed, be better.  And so it's kind of,    broad beyond just the client, but  some things that we've already kind of touched on. So things like,   like  community, right?  That  can help a lot of  uh,  uh, of, uh, of clients with these conditions.   Learning that there are others who know what you're going through  is, is a, a beautiful thing.

 I've just seen it.    Foster huge changes in so many people.  And like nowadays it is easier to find it and get connected to.  To pretty much any community you can think of  ever. And so the, the barriers to doing that are  are just much smaller than they've ever been.   But though, we have to help clients, parents, make sure that they're ready for that though. 

 That they're in a place to benefit  from that being, because some people, you know, the worst thing you could do is like send them out to meet others like them when they are very shame based, very much. Self stigmatized. They're like, I, I, I want nothing to do with that because it's just  too painful to see that.

And so that's a process too.   Things like  Things like advocacy. So like learning, teaching self advocacy. I have,  in recent years, I've really become a big proponent of,    the,  The good that we as Beach Therapist can do for  clients by  basically helping them learn to help  themselves out there in the  real world,  that's huge.   

Like I, I, I'm thinking of  a client  from this fall that we had in the clinic and he stuttered and he cluttered. So he did, he had, um, um, both, but we were working more so on cluttering of this fall and he came to recognize that he didn't feel comfortable, um,  speaking in certain  classes.  He's a, he's, um, he's a, he's This is a sophomore in  high school.

And so we worked for a while on, well, what's going to make you feel more comfortable,  what's going to break down those barriers to you.  Showing up in these classes the way that you want to, and it came down to advocating. So he figured out, like, he needed to talk to these teachers. He needed to educate them on what, what cluttering is  why he might be more reluctant to To speak up in a certain class    what he, he needed from them.

Um, the, uh, those are all  kind  of new skills that he was able to develop.  They'd come down to just advocate  for what he needed.  And so that's a really helpful thing too.  

Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah,  I just, I'm sorry, I'm laughing and I say, I love all this, right? It's just great work, you know, um, I'm going to sometimes think this is, I'm going to cut this, but I sometimes think I, um, part of my role is to play, ask the questions that the audience might be thinking to, you know, like, so that's, that's where this might go, um, in terms of, you know, some speech pathologists. 

Some people may not feel comfortable or knowledgeable about, you know, guiding somebody through that. They have kind of more of a  mindset of they've been trained in how to work with communication disorders in terms of improving communication. Rather than some of that towards empowerment and advocacy, um, training, they may not have experience or training in that. 

And I guess what would you say to those, those individuals that are kind of at that point in their careers or their level of, of support 

experience? Yeah. That's a very valid point. Um, being kind of, well, for many   reasons. One of which is that I think less than half of the graduate programs requiring counseling class.

And so it's no surprise that the, the, the training is just simply not,  not there yet. And so I don't blame those people. They just didn't  often didn't get the  chance to learn this.   And I, I, I do also  Empathize  with them  because we are very much a, a medical model based field. Like we certainly come from that medical model perspective of Fixing, curing  conditions.

 And, and that does bring  us back to that whole  normalizing thing, right? Like that is very much the ethos of a lot of what,   therapy, not, not just in our world, but in all  professions  PT, OT, nursing, you know, all of that.  That is very much the, the. Kind of mindset of, you know, we, for, uh, for us, we work on communication and that means teaching skills to improve community 

communication. And that is certainly true.  Uh, I would encourage those people though, to also recognize that. Communication happens in a social context, and these clients live in a society that  is incredibly ableist. And they know that. Like, they have breathed it and lived it.    For, for, for, for Benny, you know, since they could read, read, but remember   many clients that have grown up with their condition, whatever it might, might  be.

And so they know. That like, it's not okay to be different. They know that it's that like they get the,  the, the message from it everywhere, you know?  that they should be tr trying to  to see normal right, to be as norm. Quote functioning as, as they can be, and  that's often very hard to do.   

Especially with more chronic conditions. And so  I, I would encourage those people to kind of be curious about that.  And to kind of.  Try to try to walk it in your client's shoes and think about and,  and recognize how tough it must be to,  to have these communication, just. Orders  in this world that we live in and  what might be the most helpful  road  to learning to live well with whatever condition you've got.

And I would just argue that Rhodes probably going to include more than just the skills that we teach them  more than just the, you know, the, the, the practice  and the like   um, uh, more medical model based skills, which can be certainly quite useful. I use skills every day when I speak  they are very useful, but they're not everything. 

And the sort of the more counseling focus aspects of  what we're doing, are we getting to re to recognize that like, you know, people need oftentimes more than just tools, more than Just strategies and skills  to   to, uh,  improve their communication.  They need to feel better about themselves and feel more  empowered and feel understood.

 And,  uh, learn how to navigate this. You know, this damn ableist  world as a person with a disability. And that's, that's where it counts. So something can do so much good.  

Yeah. Great.  Great points. I would imagine that, you know, as we talk about  the progress towards that not being linear, I could imagine  kind of those things that you can't control.

Being a part of that difficulty like the you know, the the ableist society that we do have and still has a long ways to go I I don't know if I'm making sense with what I'm saying about this But I could see on some days, you know, like some days I have that where I'm like, oh my gosh my  this How people are thinking about this really affects me even though I try to be internally focused, you know like on how I feel, you know, like  Do you have anything to kind of offer, you know, on that kind of part of the path? 

Yeah, that's true.    That's a, yeah, you can't, you can't change the world. You can't  it's going to  affect you, you know, more or less day to day. And, and, and like,  like that is, yeah, that is it.  A truth   of having a disability that   sometimes  you're just not in a mood to educate some person.

You're just like, look, I don't care.  And sometimes you're going to be fired up about, no, like you need to know. Yeah. And so like, again, those are opportunities  to counsel clients because that's what they're coming to us with. They are living this day to day.   And if we can create space for them to talk about that, you know, rather than just, hey, let's.

Let's drill these things, let's work on these things that I,  uh, I planned  having some space for them to, to discuss that and to  have a    a, a, a person to help them work through it  and. Hopefully, them developing a network of people  a support  system, be that their family,  close friends, their, you know, their significant, uh, Um,  others who have their  condition, it's those  support pieces that make those things that, that, that, that, that you were describing easier to navigate.

Yeah. And that can, can, can really help people. So sort of live well   and that's all beyond the like skills and tools and strategies and things that they might learn in, in. Speech or language therapy.  

Yeah, that makes so much sense.  You know, in drilling down even more practically, I know one of the tools you use is solution focused brief therapy.

And, um, as a speech pathologist,  well, how do I want to say that? I know enough about counseling that this is really a growing, um, perspective and way to approach counseling in general.  Um, for a lot of reasons and, and I know you found some success with this. So for those that aren't familiar, can you tell us a little bit about that and how you've used that? 

Sure. Sure. 

 So briefly,  this, approach  it's not brand new,  but it has begun to sort of  I don't know, percolate or drip down.  Pick, pick  your metaphor, make its  way to our area. And I've learned about it in the context. 

therapy. Uh, and it's kind of helping clients shift their, their  focus to the future they want. So helping clients rather than think about, you know, their past struggles or, you know,  where They've been, which can be a  helpful. I do that frequently with people, but helping them to look toward,  um, what's  often  called their preferred future.

There's sort of best hopes, right? For what, for how they want things to be.   And the great thing about this is that it's totally individualized to that person because only they know what they want to be and what their, their preferred future might look like. And so  part of this approach is to help them verbalize that and to  imagine it and to  put themselves mentally  in this potential future and then think about, well, How am I going to be different when I'm that  person  compared to what I'm currently doing?

Um, how am I going to show up differently? What will people notice  about me that will tell them, Oh, I'm different now. I am, you know, doing something differently. And so it's a mental exercise to  like, to To, to sort of create  what it would look like if you were not struggling so much with this problem, or if you accepted it more, or if you were more confident,  um, whatever the person might be wanting, but then, then you kind of work backwards.

Okay, that's where you want to be. That's the preferred future. How do we start to get there?  be, 'cause that can look like a huge gap. , right? This like huge  disconnect. And so figuring out like small steps, well, what's one thing that you could do that would get you cl closer to that? Right?  And the other part of this  approach is that it's,  it is.

a strength based approach. And so it looks at Well, are there times, are there moments when you are doing that? Are there times right 

now  when whatever  your challenge, your  problem is  when it's either not a  Problem or it's minimized.  It's not so big. And so helping clients recognize that sometimes they're already doing this.  and they may be thinking of these as the X  exceptions, like, Oh, those are just flukes. Um, those don't count.

Right, but helping them recognize  that sometimes the solutions lie in the ex,  ex,  ex, ex,  exceptions. Um, um, that can help them kind of reorient to, oh, Like when, like when I'm in this  place or this context or when I'm doing this or talking to this person, huh, things are different. Why is that? What am I doing differently?

How am I? Thinking differently, what's different there. That can also help them think about solutions to getting them  to where they want to go.  Yeah. 

It's such an interesting approach.  It sounds simple at first, but it seems like there's so many other things that are going on there.

Like you  are breaking it down into smaller steps.  I'm not a behaviorist, but you're  reinforcing the behaviors that work for you. You know, you're taking advantage of your strengths and just kind of almost building some self efficacy that you can move towards that.   Does that  match with what you've seen too? 

Yes. Yeah, it is. I like the way that you put that. You're like building some self efficacy that, Oh, I actually can do this. Right.    like where I want to go. Is not actually that huge because sometimes I can feel that, or I can be that, or I can get closer to it. And so what's different in those moments and then how to do more of that, how to find ways   to build that.

Yeah.  Yeah. It's really, it's so interesting. Brian, uh, just, this has been such a great conversation and, um, just really excited for people to hear this as we kind of get towards the end here. What are some of the key takeaways you'd like our listeners to take from our conversation? Ooh, that's a tough one.

It can be a tough one.  

, I have been thinking much more, recently about  these questions and these  challenges of  what, what, what does it mean to be a person with a disability  in the world that we live  in?

 I teach a lot of grad students and I teach a lot of  undergrads and most of them don't have disabilities, you know, just like percentage wise  and all of them being well.  Yeah. Right. Like, like, why else would they be in this field? They need what they want to help. They want to, to do well by the people that either they aspire to some day serve or they are  currently as graduate students, like serving these clients.

  So there's a good faith effort there, but there's also. Often a  disconnect or a gap in just their ability to understand  what it must be like to be different, to, to live with a condition. That makes communication harder.  That, that, that makes it more challenging to, to speak, to write, to listen, you know, to all of the things that, that we, we treat.

And so I, I've just been noticing and thinking and trying to, to To talk about more and more,   this profession, the people who become speech pathologists learning, understanding,  getting disability better. I think that that, that's a huge area that's, that's, I guess if I'm optimistic, I would say that's a huge opportunity.

That's a huge area for potential.  But it's also   an area that I think,  Can sometimes Disserve clients when it's not there  when when speech pathologist mean well, but all they know is the medical bottle of disability all they know is  Fixing problems all they know is  Like working on practicing things and You know, drills and tools, and they're often missing the huge component for that person, which is how do I, I live in this  world being different?

How do I  find confidence, find, you know, find my ability to, to  advocate. How do I find more pride?  How do I live well as a person with this condition? And so like, that's, that piece matters for the clients.   And. To address it, you have to do more than just teach them things, uh, teach them, like, speech and language skills.

 You have to, like, see them as a person who, who is experiencing the world differently than you are. And meet them there.  And that's the, the work  that I've, I've been, been,  been trying now to do with students.  And when I, present at conferences and do, do, do trainings to help those well meaning, but typically able bodied.  Kind of get disability better than they do.  

Well said and such important work. I applaud you for being on the forefront of this.  Now  as there are people that want to learn more about this, maybe looking for resources, trying to understand this better. Do you have some resources you'd like to recommend or point people to? 

Yeah, sure.  And like, this is  broadly counts selling skills and things  like that.

So  as I said, my world is mostly the fluency stuttering world. But I  began to learn more  about opportunities beyond that. So I, I can say that some of approaches  some  ways to counsel that I have found quite useful and that anybody can do trainings and do professional development on are CBT.

So cognitive behavioral therapy And it doesn't need to be like speech pathology focused. Um, it's actually pretty tough to find those that are just focused for our field. So just broadly like psychotherapeutic,  professional development  in cognitive behavior therapy can be quite useful for what we do for applying that to our clients.

 In the. Fluency world, the stuttering foundation offers, uh, uh, workshops on that. And so that, and so that's a good place for sort of stuttering, cluttering, related things.     Acceptance. And  commitment therapy. So, ACT.   That's another very useful approach for helping art clients that comes from the psychotherapy, psychotherapy world.

So, looking for those  trainings.  Again, I know that the, the Stuttering Foundation, uh, offers some of those trainings.    Focused on that, that area,   looking for, as we said, solution focused, brief,  brief therapy  also, uh, motivational interviewing  which is very  similar to To S F B T, there's all of these acronyms that we have, um, but, but, but motivational interviewing is another great skill.

I have begun to see some of those,  those workshops  at ASHA conferences.  And so looking for those, those workshops, those trainings   and again  those are skills to be applied across our discipline. Um,  And so those are, we are beginning to see more of,  of those presentations, workshops in our world,  I would also highly suggest,  um.  Um, learning  about, and if possible,  attending, so support groups for various conditions.  I know that, that there are.  for lots of conditions  for, you know, cerebral palsy for  for stuttering for, for learning disabilities   for aphasia  for adult cog for that world. Um, I certainly know  that those groups  exist. And so learning about them, getting connected to them, hopefully, if you can. Uh, meetings, some people in them that's a great way to begin to understand sort of the lives of these people that, that are our clients. 

That's a great suggestion.  Awesome.  Well, this has been really enlightening, fascinating, and really important work, Ryan. So, I really thank you for being generous with your time and for all that you're doing. It's really been a pleasure talking with you.  

Well, thank you so much for having me. I love, I love doing this.

I'd love to, to, to to discuss this.   And it's been great to, uh, to, um, for you, for you to allow me to do this. And I've really enjoyed the chat.