Perspectives on Therapeutic Progress: 11-14 Year-Olds’ Reflections

AbstractPurposeThis qualitative analysis aimed to understand therapy outcomes from the viewpoint of children who have completed an intensive ten-day stuttering therapy program. There have been reports of quantitative outcomes of stuttering therapy (e.g., changes in stuttering frequency, changes in OASES scores), but there is a gap in the literature regarding children's views on therapeutic progress when provided with open-ended prompts.MethodsSeven children who stutter (mean age = 12;1, range 11;10-14;3), 6 males and 1 female, were prompted to answer the questions “what is going well?” and “what are small signs of progress?”. These questions were answered on the first day of therapy and the last day of therapy (day 10) during individual face-to-face Solution Focused Brief Therapy (de Shazer, 1985) interviews with a skilled clinician. The responses were then phenomenologically analysed to uncover primary categories and subcategories.ResultsPhenomenological analysis revealed that communication abilities, adaptive affective/cognitive status, and adequate social support were the three primary categories that children attributed to “what is going well” at both day 1 and day 10. Changes in communication, adaptive affective/cognitive status, and relaxed bodily state were the three primary categories related to “what are small signs of progress” at both day 1 and day 10.ConclusionsThis insight into how children view their own competency and understand the steps needed to make positive changes is meaningful for clinicians working with children in this age group who stutter in order to inform clinical decision making and guide therapeutic activities. The results implicate the importance of helping children 1) realize positive aspects of the situation and 2) provide specific, detailed accounts of their goals so that goal-directed therapeutic progress can take place

The terahertz intensity mapper: A balloon-borne imaging spectrometer for galaxy evolution

The Terahertz Intensity Mapper (TIM) is a balloon-borne far-infrared imaging spectrometer designed to characterize the star formation history of the universe. In its Antarctic science flight, TIM will map the redshifted 158um line of ionized carbon over the redshift range 0.5-1.7 (lookback times of 5-10 Gyr). TIM will spectroscopically detect ∼100 galaxies, determine the star formation rate history over this time interval through line intensity mapping, and measure the stacked CII emission from galaxies in its well-studied target fields (GOODS-S, SPT Deep Field). TIM consists of a 2-meter telescope feeding two grating spectrometers that that cover 240-420um at R∼250 across a 1.3deg field of view, detected with 7200 kinetic inductance detectors and sampled through a novel RF system-on-chip readout. TIM will serve as an important scientific instrument, accessing wavelengths that cannot easily be studied from the ground, and as a testbed for future FIR space technology. © 2022 SPIE.Immediate accessThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]