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From: Rosalee
Date: 12 Oct 2010
Time: 16:02:14 -0500
Remote Name: 65.92.23.238
Hi Tim. Thank you for your thoughtful comments. You have given me the opportunity to clarify a few common misconceptions about the Lidcombe Program. The Lidcombe Program is neither fluency shaping nor stuttering modification. It is a behavioral /operant program where parents are taught to provide verbal contingencies/comments in the form of praise for fluent speech and occasionally for stuttered speech. No fluency shaping or stuttering modification strategies are taught. As well, the Lidcombe Program is not a programmed, criterion based treatment where children begin at reduced linguistic levels and increase complexity gradually. Rather, parents are taught to apply verbal comments to fluent utterances first in more structured conversations and then in less structured conversations throughout the day. The objective of the program is increased fluency. Spontaneous self-correction by the child is not essential to meeting the objectives of the program. That being said, we do often see spontaneous self-correction without training it. Often it is the older preschool age children that spontaneously self correct, but I do agree with you that we see it also in some 3 year olds. When a child spontaneously self corrects it looks to me like a cancellation. I have noticed that the child spontaneously slows down before a self correction, and I often see that ‘ahaa’ look in their eyes, as if to say, ‘”I got it”. The parent is trained to give positive reinforcement contingent to his behavior and would say something like “ You fixed that bumpy word all by yourself…good one!”