tuesday, janusry 29, 1980
daily nebraskan
page 5
Barkley Center provides program for stutterers
By Mary Kay Wayman
Porky Pig with his famous 'Th-th-th -that's all, folks!",
probably could have benefited from new approaches to
stuttering being used at the Barkley Memorial Center on
East Campus.
Charles Healey, associate professor of speech pathology
and audiology, said there are two kinds of stuttering,
repeating the first sound of a word or prolonging a sound.
Healey said there probably are students with these
problems who could benefit from treatment. He said some
speech problems thought to be stuttering, such as repeat
ing words or phrases, often are not.
One of the methods used at the center is the one
Healey puts his confidence in-speech productive
differences between stutterers and non -stutterers.
"We do not know what causes stuttering and we can't
cure it," Healey said. Those who work in the behavioral
Sciences like speech pathology treat, not cure, he said, and
they don't want to guarantee an end to a problem.
Dead-end streets
Treatments that have tried to work with supposed
causes of stuttering like psychological blocks are mostly
"dead-end streets," Healey said. Instead of looking to
causes, Healey said he works with the factors that main.
Continued from pae 4
There are a couple of things concerning the second
coming of Josh McDowell that deserve comment. The
first is the manner in which his appearances are advertised.
Flyers have been sent via campus mail at taxpayer ex
pense. Chalkboards across campus have been defaced. In the
past, hundreds of placards were distributed on residence
hall cafeteria tables.
The implication is that Josh is a university-sponsored
speaker. (What would happen it say, Jane Fonda used
such lecture advertising?)
Secondly, there is the question of Josh's philosphy.
His talks are not really a critical examination of
Christian beliefs. In truth, -they are basically anti-intellectual
and fundamentalist.
His method is to prove. the truth of the Bible by
reference to the Bible. His message is the same "I'm O.K.
- You're O.K." (if you believe) that is offered by all
ministries.
Josh's inspirational presentation is entertaining and
worthwhile. But a religious pep talk is not the same as
a serious pep talk theological debate. Josh proves again
that you can sell Christianity like corn flakes. But it
does hurt to read the label.
K.J. Ringlein
Junior
College of Arts & Sciences
Josh's truth cheap thrill
In a small town, organized religions provide the only
source of information about such major questions as
"Why are we here?"; "How does one lead a meaningful
life?"; and "How does one serve others?". Most organized
religions, especially fundamental sects, provide certain
answers.
Since the Renaissance, a university has been the only
place where people can gather to seek the answers to these
questions in a skeptical climate where the truth other than
that of appealing to the authority of a religious leader or ,
a particular set of scriptures. Through reading literature,
philosophy, and comparative religions, it is possible to
approach these questions by learning how others have
sought knowledge and distilling from the wisdom of
generations of people meaning and wisdom for one's
own life. Through the sciences, one can learn a method
for observing, analyzing, and synthesizing information in '
such a way as to derm probable answers as how this
earth and the universe are constructed. Through the
social sciences one learns to formulate precise questions
about human behavior, and one can occasionally dis
cover principles which are helpful in understanding one's
own and other's behavior.
Sometimes the impact of all this, knowledge is the
gradual discovery that behind the questions of the
humanities and sciences are more questions, more
complexities, more ambiguities than seems tolerable. And
sometimes one is brought unexpectedly, head-on in face
of the possibility that there are no answers, that we are
alone in a lawful but indifferent universe, in which we
have the awesome responsibility of deciding for ourselves
what we must do to be human, to be good, to be all that
we can be for ourselves and others.
Now an evangelist who calls himself Josh comes to our
campus with a highly organized, well-funded campaign to
give us answers about everything from life after death to
sexual problems. Anybody who has come to this univer
sity to learn and question, and struggle, within himself
or herself to define a meaningful life should be offended
by this man and his organization. If the "Devil" exists,
then he exists in the guise of this man, and others like
him who seek to tempt us away from our struggles for
knowledge and our individual ways of loving. Unlike real
knowledge, the truth Josh brings does not lead to ques-.
tions. hard work, more questions. The truth he brings is
dull. The truth is a cheap thrill;
Barbara Kerr .
Assistant professor
Educational psychology and measurement
tain stuttering.
"We're now working to get rid of the speech
productive differences between stutterers and non-stutterers,"
Healey said. "Origins of stuttering play a secondary
role."
Three processes during the production of speech must
be coordinated, he said. These are respiration, or the air
coming out of the lungs; the on or off status of the voice
box; and articulation, or the way the sounds are formed.
"We think the major problem is that stutterers have
lost control of these," he said. "If we can identify what's
wrong then we can have programs for them."
"Maybe we are onto something, the way to dealing
effectively with this problem," he said. But Healey said he
recognizes that the march of progress may prove these
theories unrealistic 10 years from now.
The purpose of the Barkley Memorial Center's three
departments, speech pathology and audiology, special ed
and the media project for the deaf, is to train students to
help people with speech and hearing problems, Healey
said.
Learn more
As chief undergraduate adviser for his department,
Healey works with students, but he said he is interested in
working with stutterers to learn more about the problem,
Because 1 percent of the U.S. population stutters,
Healey said UNL could have 220 stutterers. But he said
the actual figure is probably closer to 20.
He said stuttering students should not feel that they
cannot be helped. Programs they probably encountered in
public schools used outdated methods, he said.
Right now the 17 stutterers being treated at the center
are mostly children and adults from the community, he
said, with few students. He encouraged any interested
students io call the speech and hearing clinic for
evaluation of their problem.
Adult stutterers have had the problem all their lives,
Healey said, and their stuttering pattern is well-establish-
ed. He said it takes adults a long time to learn a new way
of talking with a fluency that does not identify them as
stutterers to other people.
The length of treatment will depend on the severity of
the problem and the motivation of the individual, Healey
said.
The charge for students and their families is $10 for
evaluation and $10 a month, for treatment, which usually
means two or three times a week, he said. UNL employees
and their families are charged half the regular fee, he said.
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