PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC FACTORS IN TREATING STUTTERERS WITH ECHO METHOD

The “Echo” method, elaborated by the author in 1957, has been widely used in Poland, and in some foreign centres for the treatment of stammering. On the basis of observations made, the author is most disturbed to find that certain specialists, in the conviction that they are using the “Echo” method, are in fact limiting themselves to exercises with the apparatus known as the echo-corrector of speach. In the present article the author emphasizes that the “Echo” method includes three types of exercises, which must be closely integrated. The first type of exercise is performed by the patient under the control of a logopathologist, and thus in emotionally artificial conditions. The exercises consist of relation or conversation with the help of the echo-corrector of speech. The element of training, drill, is here dominant. Exercises of the second type are performed under the control of the parents, and thus in emotionally easy conditions. These exercises consist of relation or conversation with simultaneous imitation of the method of speech in exercises of the first type. In the second type of exercise, the drill element is equated with the psychotherapeutic element. The third type of exercise is performed independently by the patient. These exercises are performed in emotionally difficult conditions, as they consist in carrying on colloquial conversation, giving oral replies in the school class-room, etc. Here the patient is obliged again to follow the same manner of speaking as he learns by means of the echo-corrector apparatus. In exercises of this type, the psychotherapeutic element dominates. © 1969 S. Karger AG, Basel.