Integrating Functional Measures With Treatment: A Tactic for Enhancing Personally Significant Change in the Treatment of Adults and Adolescents Who Stutter

Abstract

Purpose It is proposed that stuttering treatment, particularly for adults and adolescents who stutter, may benefit from more inventive and extensive use of functional measurement—measures that are also treatment agents. Such measures can be tailored to produce more personally significant and evidence-based treatment benefits. They may be especially useful when employed in conjunction with partial self-management and performance-contingent procedures. Method Previous approaches to the definition of stuttering treatment goals and the measurement of stuttering treatment outcomes are critically reviewed. Suggestions for improvements are presented within the framework of an evidence-based and relatively standardized stuttering treatment. Results and Conclusion Results from a review of existing literature and from 2 case studies show that 2 specific personally significant problems, saying one’s name and addressing large audiences, were improved by implementing these strategies in treatment. Functional measures directly connected to treatment, and partially self-managed performance-contingent schedules, merit further research as methodologies that are suitable for conducting personally significant and evidence-based treatments with adults and adolescents who stutter.