Stuttering Home Page

People who stutter, and who are well-informed about the problem, are aware that stuttering tends to run in families. 

What they may not know is that many of the 'stuttering myths' that prevailed in earlier times have been exposed as so much superstition and folklore through international scientific research. Nowadays there is a range of successful treatments available for children who stutter. Most of these treatments were unavailable to their parents.

If you are the parent of a child who stutters, you will be relieved to know that it is a speech problem, and not an emotional or psychological one. And you will also be reassured to know that stuttering can be treated successfully by speech pathologists.

Prolongations do not occur in the speech of all little children who stutter. When they do, a vowel or a consonant, somewhere in a word, is lengthened, for example:

"Aaaaaaask her if I can come." 
"Pu-------put it back!" 
"Is that y------yours?" 
"Mmmm-me too."

Blocks are periods of silence or silent struggle, and are common in young children who stutter. The child seems unable to make a sound, attempting to force words out, with her mouth open, or her lips firmly closed. Her speech mechanism appears to be "blocked": 

"He----'s there."
"Do my b----utton up."
"R---ub it out."

Repetitions are the most common feature of stuttering, and may include repetitions of vowels, consonants, syllables, words or phrases. 

"B-b-b-b-but not now." 
"Bu-bu-bu-bu-but not now." 
"But-but-but-but but not now." 
"But not - but not - but not - but not now."

Some children are unaware that they are stuttering, but others, probably most, are very aware. They may become exasperated or upset and say things like: 

"My words won't come out."
"I can't say it."
"I can't talk properly."

Some get frustrated and angry, and others refuse to talk, or limit the talking they will do, especially outside of home.

This was called the "diagnosogenic theory" and its powerful legacy remains. Parents are still advised, in many instances, against dealing directly with stuttering.

The diagnosogenic school said that if you drew attention to the stutter it would not only make it worse, but also make it "stick". Modern research demonstrates how wrong this viewpoint is!

Pretending to ignore the stutter (supposedly, to make it go away) or pretending that stuttering is a normal phase in speech and language development is completely the wrong thing to do, and may leave the child confused and wondering why her struggle to speak fluently is an unmentionable subject.

It usually fluctuates, and the child has good days and bad days (even including completely stutter-free days). Parents often report that their child's stutter is worse when the child is tired or out of sorts.

Stuttering has a strong tendency to "remit" - that is, it may get better on its own. Unfortunately, we cannot yet tell which children have stutters that will resolve without treatment. This means that if another child in your family grew out of stuttering, the next child in the family to stutter may or may not follow the same developmental pathway. There is never any guarantee that children will grow out of it.

There is extensive information about the Lidcombe Program on the University of Sydney's ASRC (Lidcombe Program) website.

1. The therapy focuses directly on the child's speech.
2. Parents become actively involved in therapy.
3. Parents learn methods of recognising stutters, measuring the severity of moments of stuttering, praising stutter-free speech, gently requesting that the child self-correct stuttered utterances, and providing support for the child.  
4. During regular once-weekly consultations, the speech pathologist  guides the parents and child through a therapy process that is comparatively short-term, and usually effective.

According to the Lidcombe researchers, the advantages of the program are:

1. That it is administered by parents, at home, where young children do most of their talking.   
2. It is cost-effective; and, once children have become fluent in the program, they stay fluent, provided an appropriate maintenance program  is completed.  

The Lidcombe team also stresses that the program must be conducted under a speech-language pathologist's supervision.

pro-ed USA -  pro-ed Australia

Australia

1. Australian Speakeasy Association
2. ASRC (Lidcombe Program)
3. Bankstown Stuttering Unit
4. Preschool Stuttering
5. iStutter: for adolescents who stutter

Canada

1. Canadian Stuttering Association
2. Tony Wray: Stuttering Prevention Web Site 

New Zealand

1. Speakeasy Association
2. Air Flow

United Kingdom

1. Article by Lena Rustin
2. British Stammering Association
3. Dysfluency, stammering and Down Syndrome

USA

1. National Stuttering Association
2. Scott Yaruss
3. Stuttering
4. Stuttering Center of Western Pennsylvania
5. Stuttering Home Page
6. The Veils of Stuttering
7. Wendell Johnson
8. Yahoo! Group: Passing Twice 

Webwords 11
STUTTERING
Saints, Songs, and Sites
The ACQ Internet Column June 2002

Online Conferences
A NEW WAY TO REACH OUT TO THE WORLD
Stuttering is a much misunderstood speech disorder, affecting 1% of the world’s population, or 60 million children, teenagers, and adults: an article by Judith Maginnis Kuster.  

Lionel Logue 
A FASCINATING LIFE
Encouraged by his wife Elizabeth (1900-2002), the then Duchess of York, the Duke of York, later to become George VI (reigning from1936 to1952) consulted Logue about his stutter in 1926.   

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Page updated 18 Mar 2007

http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/stuttering.htm