Thursday, March 15, 2007

Fraud or crackpot?

There are only two possibilities for Natural Therapy for Stuttering. Either it is a fraud scheme, or the person associated to the website did stutter, improved fluency, and honestly believes that the advocated approach is the way forward. Even for the latter, there is no evidence whatsoever for such treatment and I have to label them crackpots! So I urge them to at least dispel the suspicion of fraud, or I will start a campaign to take down their site.

As you are coming to the end of this website, I would like to leave you with a few advices that have helped me tremendously to deal with this disorder. Over the years, I have attended many support groups for stutterers, and I even helped to run some of them.

I challenge you to name these support groups and contacts. We want to check whether you are real or not! I also challenge you to name the person that wrote the "About me" section. I challenge you to say what role Mark Clay and Galina Tchekan play.

You have not tried the program. You do not know how effective it is. Yet, you are passing judgments. Moreover, you had a nerve to ask people to report the website even though you had not tried the program yourself.

It is your responsibility to prove the efficacy of your program. I challenge you to, at the very least, name 10 people that are not stuttering anymore due to your "treatment".

12 comments:

Einar said...

Hi Tom,
Your crackpot award is an excellent thing! How about these two as possible "laureates?
http://www.greifenhofer.de/
http://www.delferro.nl/uk/1101
Both claim to be able to "heal" stuttering...

Unknown said...

I'm always leery of programs that go by a specific name like the "such and such method" or similar. It seems the most honest and forthright therapists simply admit there is no cure and the best they can offer is therapy to help alleviate it or help the adherent be comfortable with the affliction.

Ora said...

Interesting that the Del Ferro Institute, while claiming to have been in existence since 1978, has only "A list of publications will be on view here soon" on its Publications page. Have they never written about their program?

The Greifenhofer Institut (12 years old) seems to have only the one page, with no information on where they're located or how to contact them.

Tom Weidig said...

I will deal with Del Ferro and Greifenhofer in a future post.

Ora said...

I've got a question which is completely off-topic. (It's stuttering-related, but off-topic for this post.) I don't know a way of posing such a question (does it exist?), and I don't know if the BlogSpot "rules of engagement" allow for questions like this.

Anyway, here it is, and I hope I'm not violated any of your implicit conventions or preferences....

A question the for German speakers in the group:

Are "stottern" and "stammern" interchangeable in German, - both in meaning and usage (such as geographic differences in usage?) Or is there some differnces in meaning or conotation or preference (relative frequency of these words in general usage)?

In English, Americans "prefer" stutering while British prefer "stammering", but as far a I know, the two words really have no difference in meaning.

My first, simple-minded thought comes from the simple resemblance of the German and English words: I imagine that stottern might be the same as stuttering and stammeln might be the same as stammern. But I suspect it's not as simple as that, particularly since stutter and stammer have no difference in meaning as far as I know (simply one is the preferred word in US and the other in UK), while I suspect that stammeln does differ from stottern.

Wenn ich in Deutschland reise, soll ich mich viellleicht Stotter verkuenden, doch als Stammerer in der Schweiz (oder in Luxembourg, Tom)? Is es so was aehnlich, oder etwas ganz anders?

Thanks, folks!

(And please let me know if there's a more customary place for me to pose an off-topic question, or perhaps add a new topic. I a guest here, and a newcomer, and I don't mean to enter an estabished comminity with its own well-established rules and to clutter up the site with unwanted our out-of-place remarks. (Does it help demonstrate my bona fides that I'm also a stutterer and here for suport and interest, and not trying to butt in as an outsider?))

Ora said...

P.S. As an irrepressable proofreader, even of my own writings, in my [second-from-to-last paragraph does anyone say antepenultimate any more??], Stammerer should be Stammeler (oder wahrscheinlicher Stammler)?.

Einar said...

Hi Ora,

No, "Stammeln" and "Stottern" are not synonyms (unlike in English).
Stottern is the only word used for stuttering in German. Btw, in Luxembourgish the word for stuttering is "tuddelen"...
Wikipedia.de:
- Stammeln ist die frühere und heute nicht mehr gebräuchliche Bezeichnung für eine fehlerhafte Aussprache, also eine Sprechstörung.

Der bekannteste Aussprachefehler ist das Lispeln (Sigmatismus), bei dem die s-Laute nicht korrekt gebildet werden. Der von Ärzten und Logopäden verwendete Fachbegriff für Stammeln lautet Dyslalie. Logopäden und Logopädinnen verwenden heute den Sammelbegriff phonetisch-phonologische Störungen, der den Begriff Dyslalie ablöst...
- Stottern (lat. balbuties) ist eine Störung des Redeflusses, welche durch häufige Unterbrechungen des Sprechablaufs, durch Wiederholungen von Lauten und Teilen eines Wortes gekennzeichnet ist...

Anonymous said...

all of this blog-drama is very unflattering. i've been considering dropping your blog from my reader because of this.

Tom Weidig said...

That is your decision. I think these sites are exploiting people and they need to be criticised.

Moreover, I would appreciate non-anonymuous comments. How can you criticise my posts if you dont even have the courage to name your name.

Unknown said...

Methinks that "anonymous" has some ulterior motive. The irony exists in the very drama of such veiled threats.

Anonymous said...

NEO-

Only You can save those of us caught in the Matrix of stuttering.

You are the one.

MoMoMoMorpheus

Anonymous said...

Dear Tom,

I just purchased this program for 93 bucks. It seems there is a lot of info in here. Who knows it may just help. Stuttering as we all know is a crazy thing. My question to you is, did you buy this program and read it or did you just give it crackpot status because it does'nt fit the norm?
IMHO the biggest crackpots out there are 95% of SLP's who have no clue about stuttering. Take care bro.