Wednesday, February 9, 1972 College Station, Texas % in that it j ! ^districting pit wal in that it t] the equal proti rtat court, sittii| id the plan wouli P e r cent more; ie's largest districi allest. strict court thenj f«t a redistrictiij d permit varans it between the li ist district. Local stutterers organize council to talk over their problems Talking over their problem is solving a major problem for some local adults—stuttering. The Bryan Council of Stutterers was organized through the inter est and efforts of Lee Reeves, a second-year A&M veterinary stu dent, working closely with Mrs. Joann Bourgeois, a speech thera pist and doctoral student in edu cational psychology. “Dissolving the cloud of shame, ignorance and apathy that envel opes the problem of stuttering is our first concern,” Reeves noted. Ultimate goals of the group in clude prevention and cure of the speech disorder, which is estimat ed to effect at least one per cent of the total population. Most of the Council members are also involved in individual speech therapy, but that is not a requirement for membership. Non-stutterers, particularly fam ily members, speech therapists and psychologists, are also in volved in Council activities. “Accepting stuttering as some thing you do rather than some thing that happens to you is the major step in therapy,” Mrs. Bourgeois emphasized. “Freely discussing the problem is vital, because stuttering is like an ice berg—the major part lies beneath the surface as fear and guilt feelings. Exposing it to the ‘sun light’ of public view has major therapeutic effects.” “Stuttering isn’t ever cured in the medical sense of the word,” Mrs. Bourgeois continued. “The goal is to learn to modify your speech and eventually to become your own therapist. The habit of struggling, hesitating and repeat ing in speech has been learned during childhood, so the stutterer must learn to modify his behavior and acquire new speaking pat terns.” Discussion is the focal point of the Council of Stutterers. Each member talks about successes and failures with his speech during the previous week. Barbara Kiel, a 19-year old medical technology student at Blinn Jr. College asked a question in one of her classes—almost a first for her. “I had some blocks,” Barbara told the group, “but I think I’ll try it again soon.” She usually struggles with the question on her own or sees the professor by him self. Predictions for the next week are also made. “I’m going to work JSKAGGS N ALBERTSONS DRUGS & FOODS A USDA (CHOICE BEEF HIGHEST QUALITY on voluntary stuttering,” Dudelin Thompson, Council president, promised. This theory of ‘negative practice’ is based on elimination of maladaptive behavior by con sciously practicing that behavior. “I’d like to see you ask a ques tion in class,” Reeves told Dude, who is also a second year vet student. “Soon,” was the reply. Coun cil members make it a policy not to put pressure on each other, so the matter was dropped. ONS SS.M CT 'C-. oond: BONE ARM SWISS STEAK o >LB. USDA CHOICE BEEF BLADE CUT LB. WST ■gi v" * * d BONELESS SHOULDER ROASTS 93‘ GROUND CHUCK .:”.’." . 83* BONELESS RIB EYE.“““ .. lb. .Jm BONELESS CLUB STEAK :".":" .... *r* SAUSAGF FRESH GIRMAN sausag^4LDEC0RATED CAKE! 8" 2 LAYER large SIZE EACH HOURS MON. THRU SAT. V A.M.-V P.M. SUNDAY 10 A.M.-7 P.M.- UNIVERSITY DR. at COLLEGE AYE. ADAMS VANILLA EXTRACT 4 OZ. PKG. < McCORMICK BLACK PEPPER WHITFIELD KOSHER DILL PICKLES SKINNERS CUT SPAGHETTI TOWIE SALAD OLIVES AMERICAN BEAUTY SPAGHETTI AMERICAN BEAUTY LONG LASAGNA < oz. 9 O l 3? J C oz. I » 27* ..oz, CO* JAR qj) ELBOW 10 oz. M BJp .oz JO* KRAFT LOW CALORIE DRESSING THOUSAND ISLAND 8 OZ. “More .pressure is the last thing we need,” Reeves explained. In addition to regular meetings, the Council has appeared on four television programs and has talk ed to local civic organizations. Tapes and letters are exchanged with similar groups in Washing ton, D.C., Ohio, Florida, New York, South Carolina, Pakistan and Sudan. “The beautiful thing about our efforts to increase public under standing and concern for stutter ing,” Mrs. Bourgeois said, “is that in doing these things, Council members are working on their own speech problems, too. Volun tarily facing their feared situa tions is so much of the battle.” The group is working toward establishment of speech therapy services at A&M for students with communication problems. “The administration seems in terested,” Reeves said. “We’re en couraged.” Physicians in the Bryan-College Station area are the focus of a current campaign. Council mem bers are visiting the physicians to explain the organization’s pur poses and to encourage referrals of other stutterers. Talking it over may well be the answer. Pay Board may adopt tight regulations WASHINGTON (A 3 ) — The Pay Board Tuesday proposed to scrap its present rules on merit pay and adopt tight new regulations that would apply alike to union contracts and nonunion, pay prac tices. Under the proposal, merit raises would not count against the board’s 5.5-per-cent wage guideline provided they were paid in accordance with an existing formal plan that met strict stan dards. The proposed new rules are more liberal than present regu lations in that they would treat nonunion merit plans the same as those written into union con tracts. However, they also contain a strict new provision that would prohibit new or renewed merit plans from pushing the average of all a firm’s pay raises up more than 7 per cent a year. The public will be given a 10- day period to comment on the merit-pay proposals before they are put in final binding form. The complicated rules were adopted by a vote of 11 to 1 after more than a week of de bate. Business member Robert Bassett, who had argued for a more-flexible plan to accommo date the informal merit-pay prac tices of small businessmen, cast the sole negative vote. Chairman George H. Boldt abstained as did business member Leonard F. Mc Collum and public member Neil H. Jacoby. The proposed rules spell out tight conditions that would al low firms to continue giving merit raises, which are raises to reward an individual employe’s performance, without regard to the board’s rule limiting pay hikes generally to 5.5 per cent a year. To qualify, the firm must have a formal plan for granting merit raises. The plan must be written in a union contract or some other form, but must have clearly de fined pay ranges that apply to specific jobs, must spell out clear standards for granting merit raises within those ranges, and must have a system of administra tive control. Existing plans—those in effect last Nov. 13—may continue, sub ject to review and possible revo cation by the Pay Board. Firms with no formal merit- pay plans that meet the board’s criteria still may pay merit raises provided the average of all raises doesn’t exceed 5.5 per cent a year. This limit can be raised to a top of 7 per cent if the firm can qualify for exceptions on grounds spelled out earlier by the Pay Board. The board has said it will grant exceptions allowing for up to 7 per cent a year in raises for firms that can prove a need to attract or hold new employes, for pay practices that have histor ically been pegged to another firm’s pay scale in a tandem re lationship and in cases where re cent raises have been below 7 per cent a year. Under the board’s present rules, merit pay is not counted against pay guidelines only if it is paid in accordance with a union contract containing pay ranges. The board decided to re view this policy when it was crit icized as discriminating against nonunion pay practices.