The Lidcombe Program: A client report 7 years post-treatment

ABSTRACT

The Lidcombe Program (Onslow et al., 2020) is a treatment designed for pre-school children who stutter. To date, there has been no published account from a child of early stuttering experiences with Lidcombe Program treatment. Such an account may (1) inform clinicians when they are considering the timing of intervention, (2) assist with the choice of a treatment, and (3) provide resources to supplement treatment with the Lidcombe Program. Consequently, this report is a record of separate interviews with a child and parent about their Lidcombe Program treatment experience, seven years after the conclusion of successful treatment. It is intended that this report and the accompanying video interview in the supplemental material can be a useful resource for clinicians when considering Lidcombe Program treatment.

KEYWORDS:

• Childhood stuttering
• Lidcombe Program
• child experiences
• parent experiences

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Damien Liu-Brennan for his scientific copy editing contribution to this publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 At the time of treatment, the Lidcombe Program severity rating scale was 1 = no stuttering, 2 = extremely mild stuttering, and 10 = extremely severe stuttering. Hence the score of 7 given at that time was converted to 6 for the present report. Details about the change of severity rating scale are provided by Bridgman, Onslow, O'Brian, Block, and Jones (2011).

2 At the time of Issey’s treatment, %SS scores were a routine part of the Lidcombe Program treatment process, but this is no longer the case (Bridgman et al., 2011).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elaine Yandeau

Elaine Yandeau is an American trained speech-language pathologist, certified with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. She has worked as a speech pathologist at Yokohama International School for the past 10 years, as well as a number of years in private practice. Elaine was instrumental in introducing the Lidcombe Program into Japan, having co-presented the first Lidcombe Program workshop in Japan with Dr Brenda Carey, a Lidcombe Program Consortium member. In addition to having now trained 350 Japanese speech-language pathologists in the Lidcombe Program, Elaine has presented the Lidcombe Program Follow-Up Workshop and the Lidcombe Program Activities Workshop. Elaine has also presented at the ASHA Convention, the Asian Pacific Conference of Speech, Language and Hearing, and the Tokyo Association of International Preschool conference. Elaine provides consultations for Japanese and English speaking speech-language pathologists who need guidance regarding the Lidcombe Program.

Brenda Carey

Brenda Carey is a speech pathologist who has been working exclusively in the field of stuttering for the past 15 years. She is a clinical educator at the Discipline of Speech Pathology in the School of Allied Health, La Trobe University; an Honorary Associate at the Australian Stuttering Research Centre, University of Technology Sydney; and the Director of a private Stuttering Treatment Centre. Brenda completed her doctoral studies at the Australian Stuttering Research Centre in 2008, where her research concerned telehealth delivery of the Camperdown Program. She is a Lidcombe Program and Camperdown Program Consortium Member and presents workshops in Australia and internationally. She has published her research in journals and books, and she has presented her work at national and international conferences. Brenda was a keynote speaker at the Oxford Dysfluency Conference in 2014.

Mark Onslow

Mark Onslow is a speech pathologist. He is the Foundation Director of the Australian Stuttering Research Centre. His research interests are the epidemiology of early stuttering, mental health of those who stutter, measurement of stuttering, and the nature and treatment of stuttering. Mark is a member of the international Lidcombe Program Trainers Consortium and is in constant demand as a speaker internationally. He has authored more than 200 publications in peer reviewed scientific journals. He has published six books and 37 book chapters. Mark was joint recipient of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association Kawana Award for Lifetime Achievement in Publication.