In a previous blog I talked about stammering in 2-5 year olds and gave some general advice about trying to prevent the stammer remaining. This post is about the kinds of direct treatment that you may receive if you visit a Speech & Language Therapist with your child who has a stammer.
Parent Child Interaction
This style of treating young children with a stammer was developed by the Michael Palin Centre. It works from the idea that parents can have a huge influence on their child’s talking (although they are in no way responsible for their child beginning to stammer). This maybe the first approach a Therapist will use to help a young child who is stammering. It focuses mainly on trying to alter the parent’s style of interaction with their child in order to help the child to use smooth speech again.
This was developed by professor Mark Onslow in Australia. It focuses on training a child to speak fluently by praising smooth speech and gently correcting “bumpy” talking by acknowledging it and at times asking a child to say it again smoothly. The parents are taught to carry out practice daily with their child to ensure smooth speech.
Older children
With children over 8 years old who are aware of their stammering/stuttering often therapy focuses on two main areas: Techniques to practice smooth speech and discussion on their feelings about talking and communication in general. Techniques to create smooth speech include slow speech, breathing, talking gently through stammers (easy onset) and catching stammers before they happen (block modification). Often group work can help older children as they can meet other people in the same situation as themselves and practice techniques in a ’safe’ environment. There is a lot of information on the internet about stammering; it is a controversial subject, as opinions about how to look at stammering varies from person to person.
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