#57 Special Q&A with Dr. Phil
“I realize now that the work is defined as an encounter between two people and it’s very dynamic and I’m not running the show. I’m part of, I’m providing an opportunity for this other person to safely talk about and explore issues in their lives related to. Speech voice fluency, articulation, what they notice, what their concerns are, what their fears are, what their dreams are, what their wishes are, what feels good to them, what doesn’t feel good to them.”
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch the interview on YouTube.
BIO:
Phil Schneider, Ed.D. CCC-SLP is the founding partner of Schneider Speech Pathology. Recognized as a master clinician and teacher, he has been practicing and teaching for over 40 years. He holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Communication Disorders at Queens College, CUNY.
Phil has been honored with the New York State Speech-Language-Hearing Association Distinguished Clinician Award, the New York City Speech-Language-Hearing Association Professional Achievement Award, and the Queens College Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2004 he was named the Speech Pathologist of the Year by the National Stuttering Association; in 2006 he was awarded the highest Honors of the New York State Speech-Language-Hearing Association and in 2013 he was give the Advocacy Award by the Stuttering Association of the Young (SAY). Phil is a spokesperson for the Stuttering Foundation of America and has appeared on NBC, ABC and WOR-TV; he has presented more than 200 inspirational and innovative seminars across the United States and around the world.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
0:00-1:50: Introduction
1:50-6:49: getting involved in vocal physiology, opening up new career paths
7:09- 14:00: getting involved with stuttering, therapy approaches, therapy is a two-way street
14:00-24:00: Changing therapy process to make the parent the therapist; shifting to telepractice due to COVID, telepractice is almost better
24:00-34:00: creating transcending stuttering, Dan’s insights
34:00-38:00 Dan’s insights, looking back on life
38:00-40:00: reflecting on the phrase courage muscle
40:00- 53:46: when to start therapy, what is it impacting, starting slow, involving parents in therapy
53:46-56:56 creating a positive environment, leading with love and heart, closing remarks
RESOURCE LIST
MORE QUOTES
“There are ways to be very direct in a very positive way that it becomes a sign of pride and capability instead of a feeling of shame and disability.” - Dr. Phil Schneider
“ I define the journey through the word therapy, which means healing. It means you feel better and you function better. You're more capable of enjoying your life and fulfilling your missions in this world.” - Dr. Phil Schneider
TRANSCRIPT:
Uri Schneider: We're live well, good morning, everybody. And what a big tree? Very difficult to introduce some people cause their bio's are so long other people because I have no idea who they are, but even more difficult when you have a chance to introduce the goat. And I'm not talking about the beard. My dear father, my teacher mentor, professor and inspiration, Dr.
Phil Schneider is with us this morning and we are entering the month of may. May is a great month. Has my mom's birthday. Somewhere in there is my birthday. But more importantly for today's purposes, it's better speech and hearing month. So I thought it would be cool that this whole month all of our social media, the podcast, the weekly clubhouse on Wednesdays at 11 and the whole transcending stuttering community is pulling together to really open up our doors, open up our ears.
And listen to the most important questions that you are thinking about. So if you're an SLP, a student, a parent, a teacher, an adult, a teen, and you've got a question. There's no question that's off the table. You can send any and all questions to Schneider speech.com/ask. And all month, we're going to try to respond in different ways again on social media, the podcast, the clubhouse.
But without further ado, we've got a couple of good questions lined up. These are questions that have come in. These are questions we hear on the phone all the time. These are questions we ask ourselves internally, and there is no one better than the one and only Dr. Phil, the first original Dr. Phil.
So Abba, thanks for gracing us with your presence
dr. phil: this morning to be here with you. Ori always
Uri Schneider: awesome. So Patty from Wisconsin, we'll kick it off with Patty. She asked the question of how your professional work has evolved over the years, but let's roll that back to that story we were talking about before we went live.
Cause I think that story is somewhat of inspiration and it really blends the spirit, the soul and the body, the science and the art all together. So if you could share that story about that girl has nothing to do with stuttering, but as everything to, with everything.
dr. phil: Maybe it does have to do with everything.
Thanks for asking me to share that you brought my head back in our lives, we go through all kinds of changes and they're not linear things happen and they're surprises. After I finished my master's, I thought I was pretty smart. Taking a course in stuttering and taking a course in voice.
So I took a job with multiple handicap children. And there was a girl in that school who was about 12 years old and had no voice. And meaning I, according to what everybody said, she'd never been heard to sing to cry, let alone to speak. And she was delightful and it puzzled me and drove me crazy.
How could a person have no voice? She she was also blind and I spoke to the principal who was working with her and he said nobody, she has no voice work with the kids that you can help, but I couldn't get over it. So I found all kinds of ways to wind up spending a few minutes with her pretty much on a daily basis, doing all kinds of weird things.
But basically we developed a fun relationship and I enjoyed being in her presence and she enjoyed mine and. We would tap rhythms on the table and sometimes tap rhythms on cheeks. And I was figuring out how could I figure out what's going on? And so I looked in journals to see, had anybody reported a case of a child that was never heard to speak or make a voice.
And I came across some articles about vocal physiology from a professor at a local university. So I contacted him feeling, maybe he'd have some answers. And he said, look, I'm not a therapist, I'm a scientist. But if you want to bring her up to the college we will examine her so that my students see how to examine a person with a voice problem.
And I scooted her up there without permission from anybody. And he puffs some air in her throat. She coughed, he put a tongue depressor on the back of her tongue. She coughed and gagged. And various such things. And then he turned to me and said all the parts are there and they're working. Why she doesn't speak is your problem.
I don't have a clue, good luck. And I was a combination of disappointed, angry, frustrated, scared, and empowered. In fact, by the fact that the great guru of vocal physiology had no clue. So I continued to do these things with her. And then we moved on to doing things with our lips, making all kinds of sounds with air, moving in our mouth.
And I started that process with her in the fall. And miraculously, she started to produce a little bit of a tone with some of these flutter exercises. And in the spring, she stood up and sang in the school show with a beautiful singing voice. She had not yet used her voice to speak. And my first reaction to that, and I stood in the back of the room and I began to cry because I was just so overwhelmed with seeing something that.
Apparently it not been there before, but suddenly it was birthed into the world miraculously and I didn't really feel responsible. I never figured out the why's and the wherefores, but it struck me that something could occur that wasn't there before that change is always a possibility beyond the imagination.
And I never figured out why I was so determined to believe that something good could happen, which was also strange. So I thought I changed the course of Gladys his life, but in fact, because of the relationship I formed with the professor at the university, he invited me to come and study vocal physiology as a doctoral student in his lab in Gladys changed the course of my life.
I spent the next five years with a doctoral student specializing in speech physiology, and it opened up a whole new career paths for me to be a professor, to be a researcher, to do all these things. And so I realized that process of engaging with another person. Doesn't just change the other person. It changes us beyond our wildest dreams.
I'm always watching out for those stories and every person that I meet becomes a potential next amazing story to change my life, to change their life. And that's our work we dive in. We don't have all the answers, but we go in with passion and with determination and with optimism.
Uri Schneider: Amazing. So there's a little sneak peek.
I don't think that story is on any of the documentaries yet. Maybe it would be on one of the prequels, the forthcoming ones, but what would you say about, so that was early in your career. Patty was asking this question about how your approach, and I think she was referring to specifically the Berkowitz stuttering.
How has it developed, evolved? If you look over the past, what is it? 45,
dr. phil: 50 years. 71 1971 was the first year I worked for the person who started. In fact, it was the first time in my life. I met a person who stuttered in any context. So it's 50 years and about 2,400 situations,
Uri Schneider: 2,400 lives. Wow. So yeah, over those 2,400 journeys how have things about, could you give us a little snippet
dr. phil: compressed version it back to in some way it relates back to the last, the story about the girl with the voice issue.
In that
Dr. Phil Schneider: when we start out in this field, we feel it's a very linear, you get your master's and you feel like I'm supposed to change the other person.
dr. phil: I will tell them what to do. I'll tell them when they're doing it, I'll measure it. I'll reflect it. I'll reward them good, should good job, or here's a candy, whatever.
And and we'll proceed along some linear path. And today I'll do it. You'll do it in this task. And then I'll make the task a little more difficult and then a little more difficult. And whether it's articulation, whether it's fluency, whether it's voice, I'm re I'm driving the car. And I think that, and I have our certain recipe that's pre-determined in my mind that I learned studied, been my mentored on put into my software.
This is how we're going to do it. And this is embedded in the way we train professionals who write lesson plans, where before I see you, I write down exactly what's going to happen between us, how I'm going to measure it, how you're going to change and where are you going to be next week that has changed profoundly.
Dr. Phil Schneider: I realize now that the work is defined as an encounter between two people and it's very dynamic and I'm not running the show. I'm part of, it I'm providing an opportunity for this other person to safely talk about and explore issues in their lives related to. Speech voice fluency, articulation, what they notice, what their concerns are, what their fears are, what their dreams are, what their wishes are, what feels good to them, what doesn't feel good to them.
And I define the journey through the word therapy, which means healing means you feel better and you function better. You're more capable of enjoying your life and fulfilling your missions in this world.
dr. phil: And you can feel more fulfilled. That's how I define the journey and I don't have a physical image of the end goal that's right or wrong.
And if I did, I could wind up shaming people for being who they are and making the choices that they make and having the issues that they have. So in a way it's a lot more relaxed because I don't feel like I'm on the line having to make something happen. If it doesn't happen either I'm wrong or they're wrong, something's wrong.
Not necessarily The circumstances that people wind up with are not necessarily have anything to do with their fault or causation or mine. And what is the absolute best way to handle it. It's different for each person and for each person at a different point in their lives. So it's a very flexible model.
It's not predetermined. It has to be really focused on being responsive to the other person where they are in the very moment that you're there, knowing that at any other moment, millions of things can change their circumstances, their feelings about them, their thoughts, their ideas, and their physical skills.
So it's a very, it's a process of being very responsive and welcoming and supportive. I guess the other thing is viewing issues as problems or brokenness, whether it's you don't articulate your art properly, something's wrong with your arm or your ass, your tongue sticks up. It's nothing wrong with your S sound.
Now I think of the work, not as fixing things that are broken, but as polishing diamonds that are in people. And my job is to bring out the diamond and help them see it, enjoy it, Polish it, honor it, use it to their best, to the best advantage and enjoy it. And that diamond is going to have a different shape and a different cut and a different shine for each person and for each person at different moments in time.
So it's a very interactive, I guess the closest thing would be a client centered therapy by call Rogers, as opposed to the military approach. I know the training, you will do it. You will fail or succeed. And the big issue on the neath here is it's bad enough to have a problem, and you can be shamed by the stuttering, but you could also be shamed and victimized by speech therapy and speech therapy can become more punitive than dealing with the stuttering because you're not only now failing to speak without stuttering.
But you're failing to fulfill the desire of the therapist and the parent. If you're a youngster or an adult with the expectation of the society, that you should be able to speak without those interruptions. So have to go with a lot of sensitivity, a lot of love, a lot of listening and as John Claus and who, I know you did a comradery podcast with said to me, and it just stayed in my head, the customer is always right.
So I remember distinctly when John did not want to come into the office when he was 10 and a half. And I said, if you don't want to come in, don't only do what you want to do. And that's going to be the story. When I suggested he do something in the therapy that he didn't want to do, he said, I'm not going to do that.
And I said, great. I'm so glad that you told me because stuttering can make you feel like a victim. And if the process of therapy is not responsive to what you feel you want and don't want, then the therapy makes you feel like a victim all over again. So we have to help people feel that they have agency, the power of choice, the freedom to choose how they want to cope with their lives.
How about thoughts? So
Uri Schneider: coming off of that and in line with evolution, and we've all had to adapt and respond, especially over the past year plus,
dr. phil: but even
Uri Schneider: before that not talking about approaches in a pure way or in a rigid way, but there are things that you've also adopted and integrated into your practice that range from the world of parent-child interaction, as well as things that, that draw from the Lidcombe program, which is a more behavioral approach working with preschool children.
Do you want to share a little bit about how you have integrated and brought different things into your work and what kind of resistance you had and how you've woven it in a way that sits well and. And it seems to be more helpful and and safe.
dr. phil: So I think that from a, an underlying kind of philosophy or belief system, I don't think any one person in the world has all the answers, but I think everybody has a little piece of the answer.
So I, I try and I've tried this more so and more so as I go along and it's so easy to get rigid about what you think and how you function, but to try to take a taste on different things. And sometimes even things that seem really aversive to you. I knew what he Starkweather. I had not a lot of interactions with him, and I really liked the idea of the demands and capacities models that appealed to me.
It seemed comfortable and not dangerous, and it just felt like a comfy fit. So that's where I began with my work with young children who stutter and it involved teaching parents to modify their way of interacting with the child. And to lower the communicative demand and so forth. And then for a number of years and as a professor, I was obligated to read everything that was out there and be on top of things.
So I started reading all the data coming out of Mark Oslo's group in Australia, the Lidcombe program, and the data were overwhelmingly amazing in the results they were showing. And it was very impressive. So I went to the seminars and I was not, I was negatively disposed to the idea a behavioral approach telling a kid nice, smooth talking.
That's bumpy. That's this that's that very, seemed very confrontational and potentially negative and averse. So I talked about it. I ex I discussed it, but I didn't do it until some professional at a stuttering convention. Me, are you using that approach? And I said, no. And he said, why not? I said he said how could you have that feeling until you've tried it.
So I found a way to go and watch some experts do it. And I found wow, this is looking in reality, very different than it sounded on paper. I'll give it a try.
It wasn't too long into it that I realized, the ideas that I had that from the demands and capacity as model, we're not a Versive to the behavioral techniques from the Lidcombe model. And why do we want to have to pledge allegiance to one thing or another, unless you were trying to create some research data on your newbies to really control what people did.
And that was not my investment. My investment was most, what's the most effective, positive way to help parents help their children. So I guess the first thing that smacked me in the face was that. The therapist that professional is not the therapist for the child. The parent is the therapist for the child, a mother, and a father or father, whoever the parent figures are, have the biggest impact on the child's life.
So if whatever the work is, whatever the message that a person is sending this child about what's good behavior. What's not good behavior or whatever is most powerful. If it comes from the parent in their own environment that had a profound impact on my work, I always had this idea, but it was Mark Oslo's work.
And his teaching that really said to me, that is really where the action is. And I shifted my work from my, whether it was an all our sound. We were working on an S sound or a voice issue. The parent did not sit in a waiting room. The parent became the person. I train to be a therapist for the child.
They know the child the best. They love the child. The best they'll do nothing hurtful to the child and I will guide them. So I moved into that model. And then the next thing with the fluency was the idea of a subjective rating scale and with the parent keeping data and how that could help inform the conversation between the parent and the clinician, and really steer things, because it just provided a piece of material, a substantial piece of material that you could use to guide the conversation, as opposed to, I think it's better.
I think it's worse. It's up and down. I don't know. So that tool became very helpful to me again, in all parts of my work. So I started using the idea of 10 minutes, special time and a day non-special ed and having the parent make judgements in those two timeframes and score those and use those for the conversation about how their work is going with the child.
So I guess the bigger rubric is stay open. There's always more to learn. We are never a finished product and the world is not a finished product. And there'll be more things God willing as I keep doing the work that will change. I'm going to shift the conversation just a little bit because of something right in here last year, last March, when this pandemic hit the world I closed down my physical office and which I'd had for probably 35 years and love my little cave, but it was pretty expensive to keep knowing that I would not be seeing people in that space and being in my seventies, I felt like it's okay, I'm retired, it's over.
And and bit by bit people would call me and say, could you work with us somehow on the computer? And I'm going, how can you work with a person on a computer? But it was the same idea. It didn't feel good to me because I still prefer to go for a walk with a person side by side. I would prefer to be in the same space where the worry even be sharing a screen with Ori.
But again, sometimes you have to go from where your own for resistances. To maybe that could work. So honesty is always a principle, as I said, if you look, it's not a way that I've worked, if you want to try it, let's see if it works for you. And we'll talk about it. If it worked for you.
And I started meeting people on a computer screen, sitting in my apartment where I live and you know what, it was not only as good, it was better because that face to face is very intense and it's very hard to look away or to lose your focus even for a moment. So with adults and teenagers, with people who could voluntarily want it to sit and talk to me, it became very easy and convenient cost, less money, less time on their part, and we could do anything.
And then there's something else that unfolded, which like, just kind almost like an accident that occurred. I said, look, if you want to practice these things every day or so forth, You can send me a little video clip each day of your practicing for a minute or two, so I can see how it's going. And you can send me a question.
You end the video clips have time markers on them. So you can say Phil, take a look at one minute, 0.5. I tried to do that move that we were talking about in the office. I want to show you how it looked here. Tell me what you think. I watched the clip. I hear their question. I tick tack a few comments back to them, and now I'm in their home following up on their practice on a daily basis.
And then it went one step further. Like how could I work with a preschool or you can't put that preschool. That's an, a chair in front of a computer screen. But what if the family films, this child a couple of times in different settings in their home and in their yard and wherever with family at a meal table playing in the area, buying a toy or a game that sent me those clips.
I get a chance to see this child in action in their own home with their own stuff, with their own family members. And then as the work unfolds, let's say we're doing something between the Lidcombe kinds of ideas of behavioral input, and maybe a little bit of modifying some of the communication style.
Parents start to send me these clips daily. So I know, so first of all, it means they have to do the work. They can't come in a week later and say, we did it once during the week. Cause I'm looking for that clip every day. And again, they have their questions. I then respond to the clip to the parent through the WhatsApp and I use the same principles that Lidcombe also taught me a principle.
If you want to make a critical comment, make positive comments. First four are far outweighing the number of critical ones. So I have to find three things that I like about what the parent does. And I say that back and I say, and by the way, on the next one, you might try just extending this a little bit more.
So now parents are getting daily support. And the kid's getting his therapy embedded in his daily life from the parent. And I'm getting to support that parent in their home on a daily basis, instead of, so we don't have the therapy and the carry over problem or the transfer problem. There is no transfer.
The work is between the child and this family. That's the child's communication environment. So my work with preschoolers has gotten even better and I don't need to nail them to a chair in front of a computer screen. And the other beautiful thing about the technology and where he's knows how resistant I am to move with the times with technology is if the parent says to me, I don't think I'm getting better at this.
I'm not doing it right. The kids, not this kid. I said, let's scroll back in your WhatsApp because it keeps a chronological log and look at a session from two months ago. So we, and I'm not that organized. If I had all these videos lined up, I used to try and find the video from six months ago, just put it in the machine, cue it up.
Now we just have to push a little button on a cell phone and scroll with a flick of a finger. So in many ways I'm able to do more for people in less time with less effort. I don't have to have toys around cause they have their own stuff and people are getting their needs better, more efficiently. So that has, that's like the Gladys thing.
It's a total surprise to me. Speaking of surprises,
Uri Schneider: one of the things that I always got from you was that as much as you had the greatest teachers and professors, you always made it clear that your greatest teachers are the people you've worked with, that you learned more from those 2,400 journeys and stories and the champions and parents behind them.
So in that vein little surprise have Dan Greenwall, it's going to pop in just for a few minutes. Dan is a good friend, old friend and a person who stutters, and he's also a partner in this whole transcending stuttering project. So there he is live from his office. Dan, we've got you on a 90 degree turn.
Okay. We'll turn. We are live with the one and only Dr. Phil and the one and only birdwatching growth hacking man of the hour. Dan Greenwald
dr. phil: please. Absolute pleasure to be here in the presence of Dr. Phil I, Dr. Phil, we show are out there with you. Where are you right down the street from you?
I thought there's some heart not good.
Uri Schneider: Dan, what would you like to toss up? I said, maybe you might toss up a question and then we'll toss you a question perhaps then.
dr. phil: So you know, Dr. Phil, I've been gifted the opportunity to spend a lot of time with early and really get my hands dirty, helping figuring out how to build off of, I think your concept of Tran sending stuttering.
So what I have been thinking about is, when you first had this idea, whatever many years ago to where it is now, I'm wondering if you had an idea back in the day, when you first hatched it, launched it, where you think it was going to be going. And in and also bringing it up to where you thought it was going and where it's actually where it is now and where you'd like to see it going future from now, I can see why you help people grow and expand.
That's a great set of questions. I think my life works a little bit backwards. I remember a job interview for a professorship in a prestigious university, and I got through all the stages of the interview process. And the last one I said to me, what's your five-year research plan. And I sat there and I stood up and I said, you got the wrong guy.
And I walked out. It was over for me. So it happened with the con the language of transcending stuttering that, that phrase, which I still am extremely happy with. I feel very at home within that rubric I it's the last thing we said, I always knew that the wisdom of this issue in this challenge that people are faced with, of stuttering lies within people who've lived and walked the journey.
And I always felt every time I'd sit down with you, I feel like I'm honored. And I remember wanting to sit with you and film your comments to learn from you from your journey. How could I learn about what you're dealing with from a textbook or how to support night? Isn't this ridiculous. So I always was addicted to filming these things.
This probably started filming a 40 something years ago and collecting those films, saving every inch of footage, which was a bit overwhelming. And then I started to realize, in that probably about 3000 hours of footage that I had stored was somehow the wisdom of coping with this, of making peace with this of.
Whatever. And I wanted to tell the story and people's own voices and own words and along phases because I knew the wisdom was in there. So I started just pecking through the film footage and writing down all the pearls wisdom. So again, I didn't know what I would do with that. I didn't have a plan. I knew it wasn't academic.
It wasn't going to be a journal article and it wasn't going to be a textbook. And then it started to become clear to me it was a movie because it was people's voices and people's facial expressions. People's pain came across people's victories came across people's wisdom, came across. And if they told their own story and what if there were universal principles that crossed cultures and genders and age groups.
And because I had filmed footage also of people over time in their lives, you could also see how life variables, biologic change, circumstantial change, influence this whole issue. So I started trying to put together which characters was best to make the point. And I also felt that in that process, the world could see articulate bright people.
And so the greatest negative stereotypes could be killed almost subconsciously just by realizing how bright and articulate and capable people are yet. They get stuck here and there when they're talking. So I started grabbing the stories that were most dynamic and then finding the comments that are most again no con no real sense of what I would do with that.
And just writing index cards with all the pearls of wisdom, then I became convinced it could be a movie and I'd never studied how to make a movie. And I talked to people and they said, you can't make a movie out of talking heads. And I said, that's what I'm going to do. And I just became more and more determined and Pat and passionate about it.
And then I said, what is the name of this movie? What is the theme here? Is the theme fixing, curing, hiding. Or going or being launched to transcend, to go beyond, to go above. And that the challenge itself causes to people to get stronger and better at being themselves. And that would look like a curse could in fact, in some cases, not that it's easy or pleasant or anybody would wish it on themselves or anyone else, no one wants challenge, but that challenge builds people, builds character.
It builds all the traits that you need to be successful in life. And so the word, I don't remember the first time, the word transcend hit me, but I was looking for a word to capture that flavor of the challenge being the thing that launches people. Now, I never thought beyond the moment, then I thought to myself, okay, here's the movie?
Where does it belong? This is before the internet. And I said, it belongs on public broadcasting. And then I, that's not, again, I'm always working back. Cause I have the movie in a thing. Where does it belong? And then who do I know in public broadcasting? I know one guy who was a producer of Sesame street, he'll get it on.
He fails, I'm done the doorman of my building. Who's barely literate. Sees me carrying the disk. He says, what's that? I said, take it. He comes back and says, can I show it to my aunt? Show it to anybody. She likes it. Can she show it to people at work? Show it anywhere. So then he comes back and he says to me I said, where's your aunt works.
She works with PBS. Two weeks later, the film was on public broadcasting. So if you'd asked me, where was it going? What was my dream of the future? I was working in the present and using the past to sharpen my present. I always knew I had enjoy being in your presence and respect and admire and was always inspired by your energy.
Your clarity of thought your visions. Did I know you would become part of the journey of in this way of my life. I never thought about that. And where could they, that I ever know that jury would be, would do as my first born son, it would do this kind of stuff and do it the way he does and take it so far beyond anything I ever dreamed.
No, so what's, so first of all, I couldn't be happier as a professional, as a human being and as a father, then not just to see what he has done, but to see the people he surrounded himself with the, see the way he narrowed his relationships and that the practice that he's nurtured and grown is based on flavors of human values, as opposed to profit.
Yes, everybody needs to earn a living and that's good for doing good work, but what are the values that support that, that caused it to grow that it's value-driven and that you are a part of that. Yes. Absolutely. My only frustration with this journey is I don't spend more time with you. I miss you. But so we get to change that.
Thank you so much. Maybe after we do the call, we'll set a time. So I don't know. What's next look, did I know that it was going to be a pandemic and I'd be working in, in, in my apartment, on a computer. So I didn't see that. Do I, whatever when that first happened, did I ever think that would wind up being better than anything I'd done before?
No way did I ever predict I would have a doctoral degree or go and become an academic? I never had a dream of being a college teacher, so thanks. So who knows what's next? I'm open.
Uri Schneider: That was great. That was
dr. phil: great. Inspired in, on, on so many levels. I tell Ari, Ernie and I, we talk all the time and there's a concept of. Standing on the shoulders of giants and what an incredible experience blessing the I have as an offshoot of all that, to be standing on your shoulders a little bit.
dan: And, it's just such an it's such an exciting experience being a part of this and growing this and seeing what mainly impact it's having on like other people. And it's just a kind of propels, it's a self-propelling concept and experience that it comes from you passed on it. It's, I'm very excited about stuttering at a level that I've never even thought that I would even be entertaining or thinking this would be a big part of my life work now that I'm involved with.
It's there's a lot of incredible gratitude gratitude coming your way and all of what you've done and laying the foundation for what seems to be no ceiling right now for the sake of helping create more and more guides out there in the world to help people transcend, move beyond their stutter. So thanks for that response.
That really that's. Yeah, no, I I was interested if you were going to follow up on, when you said that your life is more involved with stuttering, I lost the
Uri Schneider: exact words of your thoughts. Yeah, I I wanna we both picked so happy that was exactly what I picked up on that, but it was the same thing you picked up on.
First of all, everything Dan said, to stand on the shoulders of giants to To just grow up around all these lessons and then to be a student in the classroom. When I posted today's event, Dava, somebody who I don't recognize yet said, please send your father my best today. I teach anatomy and physiology standing on the desk, just like your dad did.
And I said, do you do it with your shoes on or your shoes off? She says, I think I do with my shoes off. Why do you ask? I said, don't you remember? You take the shoes off, you angle them on the edge of the table to show the movements of the written notes. But
dr. phil: okay. I'm going to just make a quick interruption.
This is for you, both of you given what you said, that the idea of who's standing on whose shoulders and you're both fathers. So you're seeing the next generation. So at this point, when they're first really small, they're big enough to sit up that you can literally put them on your shoulders and run around and dance around with them on your shoulders.
Then you reach a point where you dance with them, holding hands, side by side, and God-willing as well. You reach a point where you're on their shoulders. So it's not a linear process. And you and already have pulled me along at levels that I would never have gone on my own. So it's a dynamic two way street.
And I guess in all good relationships, even intergenerational ones.
Uri Schneider: Thanks Abba. The highlight of the year was when you agreed for me to throw you up onto zoom, that first time and tens of people popped on, and it was the engagement that you shared with those people. And they shared with you that really gave you this next this next step, which couldn't have been planned.
So to Dan's point, Dan, it would be interesting. Look as a 40 something year old father with the spirit that you have today, there's also the knowledge of the teenage kid in the school aged kid who stutters and the experiences that you had related to that. And of course, there's this temptation as if, you could just tell your 12 year old self.
All the lessons you've learned and all the insight, and like that would just suddenly transform the 12 year old. But one of the things that comes through the film is the lifespan perspective. That six year olds are not ready to do with 12 year olds might be ready to do. And now I'm ready to do what 18 year olds might be already doing.
They're not ready to do it a 40 year olds, 50 year olds can do. And I think that with that insight on the one hand, what do you wish you could tell yourself, or could've known sooner and at the same time, what do you think you were ready for or not? Cause you said how you couldn't have imagined being where you are today with this whole stuttering thing,
dr. phil: so many things pop into my head. The one thing that it would have been really helpful to have heard or learned when I was 12. And I'm just going to go with that. Twelve-year-old cause you can pick any age and I could give you experiences of stuttering, the specific people who didn't, who triggered the, Oh man, I'm not going to forget you for saying that.
So I have every single age of experiential of stuttering, but the one thing that I wish I heard that I'm living in, I get I'm gifted the opportunity to share it with a lot of other stutters and other people. Now is the idea of fear equals opportunity. The idea of this concept of this like courage muscle, the idea that every time we choose intentionally to lean into something versus human nature, running away from it, usually from shame.
dan: Each time we choose to lean in or building another strand, courage, muscle, and everything, their best self that they perceive about themselves. So stutters us, stutterers almost have a step up on most other people because we can't, most of us can't really hide our stutter. So we're faced with that, fork in the road of Beatrice.
Each time we choose to lean in versus runaway we add another level, another strand of that courage muscle and the idea of the stronger, the courage muscle, the stronger we are to face and deal with the heavy, big knit the life. And sometimes we know what that is sometimes often. We don't know what that is.
Life gives us a heavy dose of, Oh man, life is really short. What do you do? If you don't have a strong courage muscle, you sometimes can get flattened by that. However, fear equals opportunity. Stutterers the sooner we could understand that if I was 12 and her, that I'd be like, wait, you're saying each time I'm faced with running or staying in and showing my courage, showing myself courage, I would be able, capable of doing more quicker, younger, bigger, better, more later.
That's that's I think the thing that I would have liked to have heard, and I'm trying to rectify that by doing it now. Wow. I love that term courage muscle. I never thought about admin. I can just see the muscle fibers growing stronger and adding more layers. Wow.
Uri Schneider: It definitely resonates with a lot of people.
Dan, I know you had a short window, but as long as you can stay, it's great, but I thank you. And there's some folks here that are commenting away specifically on some of the things you just said, Dan, I just want to acknowledge Tom Scharfstein, who is a real ally and friend and an extraordinary guy in Florida.
And he has put together through this. Crazy year, some extraordinary world stuttering network. And this Saturday he's lined up 20 hours calling the stutter Fest. I look forward to capping that off at the end of Saturday after the Sabbath, of course, but this is a great lineup, Dan others. I recommend everybody check it out.
So the world's stuttering network lineup, but just back to you Abba, same question I asked Dan. So Trudy from England is asking, what do you wish you knew at the beginning of your clinical career? If you could go back and tell yourself something you wish you, now that you wish you knew then?
dr. phil: Okay. My, my real first thought goes to my job as a professor. I can remember my teaching. I remember each year feeling like I didn't want it to go back and apologize to the students from the previous year because I started my career. Thinking it was about information. And I did courses that were content based.
So we talked about this muscle on this muscle all the time. And I realized that preparing for this work is more about inspiration than information. You need the information, but you need a reason to want to know it and understand it. You need to see where it fits in the human journey. So I think that I find that as opportunities to speak to younger professionals, people coming in to become our colleagues.
I talk more about stories of people that I've met, who are challenged and who found ways to transcend those challenges and how we acted as an agent. So I'm less invested in the world of numbers and more invested in the world of souls and feelings. And I'd have to say, I wish I had known that the phrase, courage muscle, and I've been able to talk about that.
I first heard something related to it. It's in the chart, it's in the transcending stuttering movie with Michael Leven says the harder it is to do it, the more something you get every time you do, the stronger you get every time you do. And so he actually took the whole thing of difficulty and challenge and turned it on its head and said exactly what Dan said and a little bit different language.
But I wish that was my first lesson in graduate school preparing to become a professional. But actually I'm more grateful than anything else that I started out not having any formal training and stuttering therapy and starting with the first person I met, I'm saying like, I don't know anything about it.
You teach me. So that kind of came naturally. And it came from a point of. At that point, I felt embarrassed and ashamed that I didn't know anything I thought I should, because you're supposed to, therapist's supposed to have the answers. I don't believe that anymore. And because of the circumstances, I just kinda realized that because I had no choice, I didn't know what to do.
And here I saw somebody exhibiting extraordinary behavior. So I just reinforced go back and say, it's better to not know and to care and to think, and be a little bit harsh insensitive.
Uri Schneider: So just to try to squeeze all this rich opportunity that we have here with people I love very much it's wonderful seeing the questions and feedback flowing in.
Just as a reference, if you want to see the transcending stuttering documentary and the CQL going with the flow there's also a lesser known 40 minute. Lecture version, which is basically all the stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor, where my father shares the story of this first teacher, this child, Michael, who was his first teacher, meaning the first case where my dad walked into the room to help a young person who stutters.
And he didn't know what he was doing. And the young person basically said, get outta here, go help somebody else and how my father responded and the next story. So those are all available@schneiderspeech.com slash movies. But I want to pivot into ABA, some very practical things that with all your experience, you can filter back.
Cause people are very interested to hear. How do you decide for parents of young kids when to do something and when to just give it some time how do you bring that professional wisdom and care to stack the cards in favor of. The child's outcomes and so on and at the same time, but whatever that means, sometimes that might mean being more, more active in getting involved.
Sometimes I've been parents doing some work and leaving the child out of it. And at the other hand, sometimes just enjoying what is, what are your thoughts in terms of guiding parents through that are your own deciding factors in those?
dr. phil: I think the first thing to clarify as that question is coming from a parent that parent has a dilemma is something that looks like it's broken, not working right in their kid's life, his kid, her kid's life.
And it strikes them that either something neurologic has broken or something psychologically has broken and that this thing could, in some way impair the quality of life of this child and limit its potential. This scares the parents, great deal, because a any reasonable person, parent feels actually unconsciously it's their job to keep this child safe from harm and help them nurture their potential to have a rich, full life of relationships and of contribution to the world.
And this difficulty speaking, which suddenly emerges, threatens that dream may have a big problem. What should they do about it or not do about it? What should they say? What should they not say? So it's very scary. It's scary because maybe it represents a sign, a symptom of some underlying pathology. And it's very scary because it represents the opportunity to cut this child off from social relationships and from contributions in the world.
And it's very scary because it's hard to understand what to do and what not to do and find simple advice. If it's a bacterial infection, it's going to be an antibiotic, it's pretty straightforward. It's a bone break. You need someone to set the bone and protect it. And it's kinda this is what's broken.
This is how it gets fixed. It's it seems more clear cuts. The stuttering thing is very strange because it's like it was developed. The speech was developing well, now all of a sudden it seemed like it broke. It's also very hard to come to grips with because it's changing every day. And every moment there are moments when it's completely not there.
And there are moments when it seems where rather significant and large, it's also difficult because we have no cause and no etiology. We don't know what it really is still in the world. So professionals are confused and the parent gets mixed messages. And because of that, we have these different treatment ideas, which many of them have some good pieces to them and maybe a good fit and some not a good fit.
So it's a really scary time for the parents. So when I get that call and the parents say, I don't know what to do. I don't know if we should talk to the kid about it, if we should talk to you about it, because you'd be in therapy, not be in therapy. To me, my job is very clear at that moment. It's to help this parent find their way through this dilemma and to feel supported that they're not alone.
And so that first phone call, they have to know I really care. I'm not really sure just from the conversation what's best, this child better than anybody else. I am very doable, voted to these kinds of issues and have been around the block with them. Let's spend some time talking it out together and in today's world, as I said before, you can send me a bunch of videos so I can see your child.
We'll set up a time to speak for an hour. So we can really talk about the details of what's going on. And if you think it's really a great idea to include your kid. Talk to me about that. If you think it's a good idea, not to talk to me about, your child. And your concerns that you're raising are because you're sensitive and concern and you're absolutely right to be concerned.
The pledge of a healthcare professional is number one, do no harm. Number two, try to do some good. And I'm not exactly sure how that's going to play out, but let's send me some materials so I can get to see your child in their own home, in different settings, different circumstances. Then let's sit down and you can really educate me about your child.
And then together, gently and carefully, we'll go one step at a time, always listening to what your perception always watching what the child's feelings are. If it seems to make you feel better, the time that we spend together, you start to feel more calm and more focused as to what's healthy. As we see that what we're doing is making your kid feel better and function better.
We move forward and we feel anything for you or for your child is aversive. We're going to stop and talk about that. And go slowly and think about whether we're going to continue. And one of the things that's different about my work then than the models that I grew up on, because I don't believe a linear model.
Just because we decided to meet for our first meeting today, doesn't mean we're going to meet every week for the rest of life. We'll start going. And if it takes us in the right direction, we'll tickle it and we'll twist and we'll tweak it. And if it's not doing anything or God forbid something worse than nothing, we'll pull back.
Because matcha where a child is not a static entity, the child grows up a child, a little baby, becomes a toddler. A toddler becomes a preschool or preschool that comes a school age, child escalate, Shaw becomes a latency and an adolescent, and then a young adult and then a mature adult and then an older adult.
And each of those things brings change anatomy, physiology, psychosocial perspective, and life experience. So the whole dynamic keeps changing. So we're not going to. W we're going to start slowly and gently, and you're going to be a full part of the equation. And together we'll go safely and be careful to protect the wellbeing of your child.
Who's the biggest interest you and the goal will be not only will your child, God willing feel better and be able to speak with greater ease, but you're going to feel like you were part of the solution and not part of the problem and that, and even though right now, that feels scary. I'm going to support you on a very close way and together we can do this.
Uri Schneider: I think that's so important to two things to highlight one practical tip and then a follow up question. And I'm going to be our last question for today, but drop your questions. We will try to circle back and then my dad will make some shorter video clips to address the outstanding questions. And over the whole month, please feel free to send your questions to Schneider speech.com/ask ask this month is may better speech and hearing month.
So the whole month we really want to take questions. So generally people throw a lot of information. And as you said, the work both as a professional, but also for a parent, for a young person and a young person information doesn't solve human experiences. Generally it, we need to have human solutions and to tap into both the body and the spirit.
And I think parents often feel, they need to know what's the right thing to do. And there's no right thing. It's a combination of what's going on. What's the experience of their child and what's their way of dealing with it. So the tip I sometimes use off of your starting point. I'll ask a parent in that first conversation, what's your best hope?
What are you hoping? I'll say, because they're asking sitting at the edge of a cliff of some sort hoping the answer is I hope he'll be willing to help me. I hope he won't be another one who tells me I'm worried about nothing. Just give it time and just wait and see. Or maybe they're sitting at the edge saying, I think my kid is really fine.
I hope they'll tell me he's just fine now. I don't know. But sometimes I'll ask them that and then I'll ask, and what's your greatest concern. And in that way, those questions sometimes help me get to some of the underlying feelings and thoughts that are going through the mind, because I know that the same question can mean very different things, hey doc, what should we do? It sounds like a simple question, but it's not. And we need to understand where people are coming from. So I just would love your input. What do you do when parents have this concern? If we talk about it, if we decide to do something about it, might we make the child aware and might be, give them a complex of a bad self-image and somehow harm the child.
On the other hand, the parent is saying, I want to do something about this. How do you approach that? What are your thoughts on that?
dr. phil: What age child are you visualizing? Three, four, five, six. Let's go with the three, four, maybe five. One of the things that I learned from Mark Onslow and his Lidcombe group in their approach, which is very helpful with this is better not to have a whole sit down with a four-year-old or a three-year-old and explain what we're doing and so forth and so on.
It's a very adult kind of cognitive model and there's no harm in talking about what's great. Saying, Hey, that's great. Hey, that's great. If you were teaching baseball or violin or kicking a ball or any skill to a child, you say that he did that great. And if you did enough of that, you did that. Great. You might say loops and then they might go back to that.
Yeah you got that's the way. So it's really positive feedback about learning a skill. There's nothing evil in that. That's a normal part of child's growing up experience, looking to the parents, actually wanting, needing that feedback and that steering in inappropriate way. So number one, the feedback is not overwhelmingly negative.
It's overwhelmingly positive and it's gradually steering the child to behavior that's healthier and more comfortable for them without a discussion about it. You want to teach a child to ride a bicycle. It's time to take off the training wheels. You don't give a lecture on how gravity or gravity and centrifical force will keep the bike up and so forth.
You don't give a physics lecture. You just say, get on it and you hold the seat and you start to run with them. And then pretty soon gradually let go, and you let go and you say good. And then they start to feel the confidence that it works. It's just, it's a physiological experience.
It's not a cognitive verbal conversation. Those conversations are a problem. So I agree that it might not be good to sit your kid down and say, look, if you keep talking like this, life's going to be difficult. So you should start working on it. That's like not a good package. So I think that there are ways to not the ways to be very direct in a very positive way that it becomes a sign of pride and capability instead of a feeling of shame and disability.
So that's my answer. Even with a
Uri Schneider: language makes a world of difference. If you're
dr. phil: dealing with a six-year-old or a seven-year-old. And you say, you know what? I know if I'm introducing myself to this child, now it's on a zoom or whatever I say, my work in this world of helping people be become great talkers and you already a great talk.
I see love to talk and I love listening to, and you have all these interesting questions and thoughts to share and have so much enthusiasm. These are the traits of great talkers. Another thing a lot of great talkers do is sometimes they go a little bit quieter and then they get a little bit louder and sometimes they go a little faster and sometimes they put in a few more spaces.
So if we play with those things, we can take your great skill at being a great talker, which is a gift and make it even greater. So you can talk about it, but positively
Uri Schneider: the simplicity and the subtlety is profound. There's a comment here that really captures the whole thing, huh? Katrina says as a student, this conversation has been so eye-opening and inspiring.
I can't thank you enough. I'll be taking this forward in my therapeutic experiences. What a beautiful perspective. And for those of you that know for those of you that don't my father has not only been involved in the lives of 2000 plus people who stutter, but has had a part undergrad grad of workshops engaging training, influencing.
And then of course, through the film, transcending, stuttering, and going with the flow, touching the lives of therapists around the world. And if we can all continue to come back to what really matters and make it really human, bring the humanity back into the room, both looking at people who come in, looking for guidance and support and direction, as well as those of us that are in the position to be the guides, to recognize our humanity.
Our vulnerability, our limitations, but also our strength. And it doesn't come from textbooks filling our minds, overflowing with information. You gotta lead with heart. You got to leave with lead with humanity. So I just want to thank my father for this time. And again, encourage people to drop your questions.
And the podcast is transcending stuttering. This conversation is a great one. Some of the people my father talked about have been on the podcast. You can meet some of them, John clausing Jonathan Castello and so many others. So it's been a big treat to share this time with you. Please send us your comments and feedback so we can continue to come back with relevant opportunities to learn and to listen from some of the grades.
But today was especially, yeah. Remarkable to hear from my side, Dr. Phil Schneider. And I thank you, Abba. And thank everybody for joining us. Do you want to leave us with one parting wisdom? I feel like you've got some kernel that you wanted to share.
dr. phil: Two, two statements. One is gratitude eerie because my experience here parallel so much of what we're talking about, which is, I didn't think I had much to say we had the faith to say, I think you have something to say, come on the show.
We'll it'll come out. So sometimes you don't even know what's inside of you until you let it come out. The second comment is to, for those of us, for all of us, whoever we are professional parents, individual is stuttering. Follow your heart. Think of what you want to bring into your life and get to it.
Dan said to me, Oh, you said you'd like to spend more time. Let's schedule it and do it. So that should be the way we all lead our lives. Thank you so much for sharing this time.
Uri Schneider: Thank you again, everybody. And you can follow everything on social and Snyder. speech.com/t S a you can sign up for emails and follow what we have to do for speech therapists and for people who stutter. And most of all, just enjoy talking and being yourself, wishing everybody a great day. And remember to check out the world's stuttering network stutter Fest this weekend.
It's an amazing opportunity. 20 hours of hearing some of the great leaders, people who stutter researchers, clinicians around the world. Thanks to Tom Scharfstein and everybody over the world sending network. All right, we can do a lot more together. Everybody have a great day.