Fluency Management Program of the Carolinas (FMPC) is an intensive three-week summer program for people who stutter, ages 6 and older. The purpose of the fluency program is to help participants better manage their stuttering through fluency stabilizing and fluency enhancing techniques, while also working to minimize avoidance behaviors that are commonly associated with stuttering.
Since stuttering is thought by some to have more covert symptoms (i.e., substitutions of words and avoidance of sounds, words, people and places) than overt manifestations (i.e., repetitions, prolongations, and postural fixations), the covert symptoms should not be overlooked. To this point, we work with the participants in accepting their disorder. This does not mean that they have to love or even like their stutter, but accept it. It is our belief that this is a difficult thing for people who stutter to do without first, or simultaneously, improving their dysfluent speech. Therefore, our goal is to teach clients ways to better manage their stuttering and decrease the dependency on other techniques often used to mask stuttering.
We also teach techniques that we believe will help in carry-over fluency, or fluency that requires less or little effort. These techniques certainly require more research, but clinically, we have found them to be effective.
Through FMPC, we aim to enable participants to become better communicators. Because no cure currently exists for stuttering, participants are not likely to attain 100 percent fluency. However, our program will help them achieve measurable improvement in communication. Our ultimate goal and desire through this program is to increase fluency as much as possible while eliminating the practice of avoiding speaking situations as a result of fear of stuttering.