Treating Stuttering with the Lidcombe-Program. : Parents’ Experiences and a Follow-up on Children undergone Treatment of Stuttering with the Lidcombe-Program.

Abstract: The Lidcombe-program (LP) is an empirically developed treatment program for stuttering based on behavioral therapy that adopts operant conditioning as methodology. The program is designed for children up to the age of six, and it is mainly conducted in the home environment by a parent under the supervision of a speech-language pathologist (Onslow, 2003a). In countries around the world, studies of outcomes of the program have shown positive effects (Lincoln &Onslow, 1997). LP is conducted in Sweden, but no major long-term study has been performed.Criticism towards LP regards that the intervention would affect the relationship between thechild and the parent in negative ways (Woods, Shearsby, Onslow & Burnham, 2002).The present study is a follow up of children and parents who have undergone treatment withLP. The aim was to investigate how childrens’ fluency of speech changed after treatmentand to examine how parents' experiences of the program can be characterized. Ten parents were included in the study, and they all answered a questionnaire about the experiences of thetreatment. Fluency of speech was documented and assessed in eight children.The results of the present study showed that all of the participating childrens’ stuttering was significantly reduced after treatment. A strong significant correlation between the time the child spent in treatment and the percentage of stuttered syllables at baseline was observed. The majority of the parents had positive experiences of the treatment, and would recommend the program to other families. However, parents also found it difficult to execute the therapy, mainly as regards finding the time in the everyday life of the family. In addition, four of the participating parents disregarded the treatment manual and shared the responsibility of implementing the treatment with their spouse, but this did not appear to influence the outcome of the treatment.