Introduction

When evaluating or treating childhood stuttering, it can be difficult for clinicians to know where to start. In addition to providing effective intervention for the child, clinicians must also help educate parents, teachers, and others in the child's life about stuttering. Even though this can be an intimidating proposition, there are many resources and materials available that can help from both a treatment and education standpoint.

The resources provided below include a brief description and most are in PDF file format. Those resources marked with   require a free Adobe reader which can be downloaded here. These are all materials that I have found useful when working with children who stutter. Please feel free to print these materials and use them yourself. Whether you are a clinician, student, parent, person who stutters, family member, teacher, or physician, I hope you will not only use these materials, but continue to improve them through your feedback, as well. All of the resources below are from the Stuttering Center of Western PA (www.stutteringcenter.org). Readers are encouraged to examine the many other wonderful resources from other facilities in order to have a wide variety of "tools" available for those who stutter.

Remember, stuttering is a unique communication disorder that presents not only many challenges, but also many opportunities. Through effective treatment, we can help children who stutter unlock their communication potential. No matter what your relationship to the child, there is no better feeling than to be a long for the ride.

Parents

  Information for Parents of Preschool Children Who Stutter - This handout provides a brief overview of stuttering disorders and suggestions for parents of young children who stutter. Parents of young children can help by: (i) providing a model of an easier, more fluent way of speaking, (ii) reducing demands on the child to speak, particularly demands to speak fluently, and (iii) minimizing the time pressures a child may feel when speaking.

  Helping Children Develop Healthy Communication Attitudes - Children may exhibit strong negative reactions to stuttering. This handout provides suggestions for parents to help children develop positive attitudes toward communication. The ultimate goal is to prevent the child from developing the negative reactions that characterize advanced stuttering, while simultaneously improving fluency in speech treatment.

  Suggestions for Families of Young Children Who Stutter - This handout provides ten suggestions for parents and other family members of young children who stutter. Some of the suggestions may help children speak more easily by reducing the stressors a child feels when communicating. Some of the suggestions are directly related to speaking or listening behaviors, and some are related to more general family routines.

Teachers

  STUTTERING AT A GLANCE: Information for Teachers - Teachers can play a critical role in the success of treatment for children who stutter. This handout provides specific suggestions for teachers who have children who stutter in their class. Specific suggestions for handling teasing and bullying are discussed.

Physicians

  STUTTERING AT A GLANCE: Physicians and Health Care Providers - For most children who stutter, successful treatment begins in the office of their pediatrician, who refers the child for a speech fluency assessment by a certified and licensed speech-language pathologist. The role of the physician and other health care providers can not be overstated, as their support is often needed for treatment to begin. This handout provides information on stuttering for health care providers. In addition, it provides specific guidelines for deciding when to refer children to speech-language pathologists for stuttering concerns.

Assessment

Assessment of the Child's Experience of Stuttering (ACES) - This measure was developed by Yaruss, Coleman, & Quesal - a draft version was available in 2004. However, the draft version has been removed at the request of the creators since it has been updated and is now commercially available. (Judy Kuster, July 12, 2011). This tool helps assess a child's affective and cognitive reactions to stuttering, as well as difficult speaking situations and is invaluable in both planning treatment and measuring progress.

  Disfluency Count Sheet - This form allows clinicians to track number of disfluencies in various speaking situations. Clinicians can use this form to track both the number and types of disfluencies.

  Diagnostic Intake Form for Preschool and School-Age Children - This is the intake form that we use for obtaining information prior to the assessment for preschool and school-age children who stutter.

  Diagnostic Intake Form For Teens Who Stutter - This is the intake form that we use for obtaining information prior to the assessment for adolescent children who stutter.

Free Newsletters

"Stuttering Center News" and "Kids Speak" are newsletters distributed free via email. The "Stuttering Center News" provides assessment and treatment activities, information for clinicians and parents, and other resources related to stuttering. "Kids Speak" is a newsletter specifically for children who stutter. It is written in "child-friendly" language that helps children better understand stuttering. We typically have two contests per year, involving children from all over the country. We currently have a contest running until October 31, 2005 called Fluency Fantasies Across America!   See here for more details! Past newsletters and information on how to subscribe are available at www.stutteringcenter.org/Newsletter.htm/.

Insurance

  Insurance Advocacy Brochure - This brochure was developed by the National Stuttering Association Insurance Advocacy Committee. It provides specific suggestions to help families obtain insurance coverage for evaluation and treatment of stuttering. In addition, to the brochure, the National Stuttering Association Insurance Advocacy Committee has also developed sample appeal letters, which can be found at www.stutteringcenter.org/Insurance.htm/.

Parent / Child Training Program (PCTP)

As an initial phase of treatment for preschool children who stutter, we administer the PCTP (Yaruss, Coleman, & Hammer, in review). This combines aspects of both indirect and direct treatment and can serve as the sole form of treatment, or a beginning stage of treatment, with a more direct approach to follow. In this program, parents are taught techniques for facilitating fluent speech in the home environment. Following the approximately six sessions of the PCTP, the child may be discharged and monitored, or more direct individual treatment may be recommended. The handouts below are used with the PCTP in the initial parent education and counseling.

  Stressor Inventory Handout - This handout is used to help identify inter- and intra-personal communication stressors that may be contributing to a child's stuttering.

  "Bucket" Analogy Handout- The Bucket analogy is used to show parents that stuttering is not "caused" by one thing. Rather, it is a multi-factorial disorder that can have many contributing factors.

  Communication Wellness Handout - This handout is used to explain our treatment flow, starting with parent education and counseling sessions and progressing through indirect and direct components of treatment.

  Home Charting Exercise - We typically have parents complete this handout in the early stages of treatment to help demonstrate that one situation is not "causing" their child to stutter. Parents can also start to feel empowered by this activity, as they start to become more active participants in treatment.

  Easy Talking Practice - This handout provides suggestions for parents to help reduce their overall communication rate with their child. This approach does not focus solely on speech rate, but rather communication rate (i.e. speaking rate, pause time, turn-taking, etc.).

  Modifying Questions Handout - This handout provides examples of prompts that parents can use to invite the child to speak, rather than demand speaking from the child.

  Communication Modification Refresher - This handout is given at the end of the PCTP and reviews all strategies that have been targeted in the initial phase of the treatment program.

Interruptions Chart - This handout provides a strategy that parents can use to help reduce verbal interruptions in the home environment. This strategy can be particularly useful with children who stutter and their siblings.

-Discussion-