Research Question:
What is the relationship between self-esteem and theraputic progress in stutterers?

Foundation Questions:
Do people with stuttering disorders tend to have high self-esteem or low self-esteem?

Could bad self-esteem in the client delay the progress in therapy?

Does high self-esteem in the client make therapy easier?

Tentative Point:
My point is to find if self-esteem correlates with the progress in therapy. I would like to know how negative self-esteem as well as postive self-esteem affects the progress in therapy. I would like to know if self-esteem could delay therapy or make it seem like a breeze.

Genres:
Webliography, a power point presentation, a poem, journal entries, brochure, and an interview transcript.

The poem and the journal entries will be in the clients voice. The brochure will be in the parents voice. The interview transcript will be in the clinicans voice.

The audience for all of the genres will be the same. It will be directed toward SLP's and students who are studying to be SLP's.

The rationale for the poem and the journal entries is so the client can express how they feel, and how it frustrates them when they know what they want to say but they can't get it out. The rational for the brochure is to inform people of what the parents of people who stutter go through, how they support their children. If they show support or not. The rationale for the interview transcript is to show what might happen in an interview with a person who stutters.

Discussion:
I plan to bring all of the genres together by telling a story of a young man who stutters. In this story I plan to start with the initial interview, then move on to how the client expresses himself in poems and in his journal entries, and then how the parents cope with it to develop a brochure for other parents and professionals.

Tenative Resources:

Packman, Ann and Onslow, Mark (2002) Searching for the cause of stuttering. Lancet, p655. Retrieved September 28, 2002, from EBSCOhost database (Academic Search Elite) on the World Wide Web: http://search.epnet.com.

Sommer, Martin; Koch, Martin A; Paulus, Walter; Weiller, Cornelius; & Buchel, Christian (2002) Disconnection of speech-relevant brain areas in persistent developmental stuttering. Lancet p380. Retrieved September 28, 2002, from EBSCOhost database (Academic Search Elite) on the World Wide Web: http://search.epnet.com.

Agrawal, Alka (2001) The Stammering Brain. Science Now p2. Retrieved September 28, 2002, from EBSCOhost database (Academic Search Elite) on the World Wide Web: http://search.epnet.com.