NBA Player Speaks to CSD Students on the Importance of Client-Clinician Bond

From an outsider’s perspective, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist probably appeared to have it all.

Even as a talented basketball player with a loving family and good group of friends growing up in New Jersey, he said he felt isolated for so much of his young life, in fear of being heard. All because of his stutter.

Kidd-Gilchrist, who won a national NCAA championship with the University of Kentucky and was the second-overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft, visited Rockhurst University Wednesday night to talk to a group of communication sciences and disorders students and faculty. His message? The relationship between speech therapists and patients can make a huge difference in the lives of individuals who stutter. And to increase the visibility of those who stutter.

“My being here is an honor, because I’m being heard,” he said. "This is my therapy."

About a year ago, Kidd-Gilchrist founded the Change and Impact initiative to raise awareness of the stuttering community and advocate for policies that benefit those who stutter, including federal legislation to expand insurance coverage for speech therapy. He’s since visited 23 different college and university campuses to spread his message, tell his story, and help future providers understand the stuttering community a little better.

Kidd-Gilchrist said he had seen speech therapists before college, but the experience felt like an extension of the school day. It was only when he arrived at the University of Kentucky that he met a therapist who sought to truly understand him as a person first and then worked to help him in subtle and creative ways. Their relationship was so close that the therapist eventually became the godmother to his daughter. And it began with something as simple as having conversations.

“I could be open and honest because, for the first time in my life, I had someone who understood me,” he said.

Kidd-Gilchrist said his therapist got to know him as a person first, and through that process would develop therapies specifically for him, with steps such as using a metronome to manage his stutter rhythmically and hosting a practice post-game press conference with his teammates to get used to speaking publicly. Ana Paula Mumy, adjunct instructor of communication sciences and disorders who helped bring Kidd-Gilchrist to campus, said she thought this in particular was an important message for the students to hear.

“It speaks to the reality of that bond,” she said, of the way that Kidd-Gilchrist’s therapist sought interpersonal connection first. “That to me speaks volumes about the therapeutic alliance.”