Speech Therapy for Children Who Stutter

Abstract

This chapter aims to investigate and evaluate the evidence available for stuttering treatment research in children who stutter (CWS) and provide a qualitative review of the same. Studies were considered for review if (1) they were behavioral intervention of stuttering for children, (2) participants were in the age range of 2-18 years, and (3) the outcomes reported assessed stuttering. Twenty-seven studies were obtained through an electronic search of databases covering two approaches and 10 techniques. The analysis of these studies revealed that direct approaches have a stronger evidence base in comparison to the indirect approaches. The most popular approach with maximum studies is the early intervention Lidcombe program. The commonly used outcome measures included the percentage of syllables stuttered, syllables per minute, and severity rating scales. The conclusion drawn from the review suggest that evidence base to support behavioral intervention of CWS exists for a limited number of intervention techniques and among them very few exploring the long-term effects of the intervention.