What is ARTS®️ therapy?
Avoidance Reduction Therapy for Stuttering (ARTS®️) is a stuttering therapy approach that views stuttering as an approach-avoidance conflict. The theory states that a person who stutters (PWS) experiences a want to speak and interact with others, but experiences a simultaneous urge to hide their stuttering, resulting in the development of maladaptive secondary behaviors in an attempt to hide their stutter that interfere with easy and effective communication. ARTS®️ works to reduce maladaptive behaviors such as eye blinking, word substitution, and the use of fillers, with the goal of producing a more comfortable and forward moving manifestation of stuttering. ARTS®️ also works to reduce the handicap of stuttering by increasing a PWS’s willingness to participate in activities and situations regardless of whether or not they stutter. This type of therapy works to modify the moment of stuttering, not to change the way a person speaks. The focus is not on if one stutters, but rather how one stutters, with the goal of helping the PWS become an efficient, spontaneous, and confident communicator.
How does ARTS®️ therapy work?
ARTS®️ is based on the idea that, though stuttering has a neurological basis, it is actually the fear of stuttering that is the most detrimental to a PWS’s effective communication and self-esteem. The fear of stuttering facilitates the development of avoidance behaviors. These avoidance behaviors then maintain the fear of stuttering, which then leads to what ARTS®️ calls “challenges.” Challenge refers to learned physical reactions to stuttering, such as vocal cord tension or feeling like you are stuck on a sound. This challenge can be detrimental to self esteem, as many people who stutter develop feelings of shame and embarrassment about their speech and negative thoughts about how their speech will be received. This results in more fear, avoidance, and challenge that further hinders flowing communication.
Since fear and avoidance fuel challenge, ARTS®️ aims to reduce challenge by removing fear and avoidance. Whereas other approaches focus on fluency, this approach believes that a person’s overwhelming desire to be fluent perpetuates the problem, contributing to word and situational avoidances, as well as many of the challenge behaviors evident in their speech. By teaching clients to accept and adapt their stuttering behavior, fear and avoidance is lessened. This allows for an improvement in a person’s ability to successfully communicate in the real world. ARTS®️ works to systematically reduce any fear/avoidance related to speech at an individualized pace and in a safe environment. With time, the reduction of stuttering related fear results in less challenge and more comfortable, effective, and forward-moving speech.
Why should I try ARTS®️ therapy?
ARTS®️ therapy is recommended for adults who have undergone traditional speech therapy for stuttering and remain unhappy with the ability of the therapy to help improve their communication. ARTS®️ addresses the life impact of stuttering, as well as the challenge, self-consciousness, and shame that often accompanies a client’s desire to be fluent. It acknowledges that efforts to control or suppress disfluency act counterproductively, fueling the problem and further hindering effective communication. ARTS®️ eliminates efforts to control disfluencies, instead teaching clients how to “stutter well.”
The ARTS®️ approach facilitates long-term gains that traditional fluency shaping techniques do not. Efforts to control stuttering (tools, techniques, control, management) need constant refreshing/reteaching. This means that clients have to periodically come in for refresher sessions even after their initial treatment has been completed.
ARTS®️ therapy yields increased positive outcomes across a variety of areas, including efficiency, comfort, spontaneity, confidence, and joy in communication. In desensitizing clients to the allure of fluency, more confident and forward moving speech develops. These gains persist even after a client’s course of treatment has finished.