I’ve been told that around 5% of children will develop a stutter that lasts more than 6 months. This is what happened to my son, Jay. To be completely frank, I’ll admit that I don’t recall when he started to stutter, but I can tell you that by the end of his first year of school it had been there for more than 6 months. In fact he had been stuttering for more than a year.
Being a loving father who believes his son is perfect in every way (even after threatening to sell him on ebay), I was in a little bit of denial as to whether it was really a problem. Fortunately (for Jay if not for me) my wife was more believing and convinced me that we should take him to a speech therapist to at least have him checked and see what our options were.
So, off we went to see a speech therapist just before he finished his first year of school. In hindsight I’m glad we did. The therapist is nice and good with kids, and seems to know what she is doing.
The therapist follow the Lidcombe Method and if you want more info on it, just click on that link and you can read all about it.
Anyway, on the Lidcombe Method, the stuttering is given a rating from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most severe, and 1 being no stuttering at all. Jay was right about the middle, coming in around 5 or 6, based on the number of times he stutters in each sentence.
So what, I hear you ask (or maybe I’m hallucinating again?), does this treatment entail? Well, I can only tell you how it went for us.
According to the website above, we were supposed to have an appointment every week. Unfortunately our chosen therapist didn’t have available slots, so we ended up seeing her approximately every 2 weeks. Which turned out okay, although I wonder if having more contact with her it would have improved quicker.
The process was basically the same every time we visited. Both SO (my wife) and I tried to be there for every appointment, which didn’t always work out because of our work schedules, but most of the time we were both there. I think this was an important factor and gave Jay the support and encouragement that he needed through the treatment.
In the sessions it usually started out with the therapist talking with Jay for a while to gauge his level of stuttering, which she then compared to what SO and I had thought of the interaction. She then discussed with us how it had gone since the last session, talking about his stuttering levels for each day (which we had recorded on a calendar), and how we were going with the praising.
I guess I should mention here that praising is a big part of the treatment. When he speaks well, without stuttering, we tell him using simple phrases such as “well spoken” or “good speaking”, you get the idea, positive feedback. From a psychology perspective, it’s simple behavioural modification through positive reinforcement. After awhile, and after Jay had improved a lot, we introduced negative feedback where we would point out when he stuttered. However the positive feedback always far outweighed the negative.
Anyway, back to the treatment session. After the therapist talked to us about the progress, we would move into an activity that would require some talking, such as a game. During this game either SO or I, or in a couple of instances both of us, would join in the activity and would praise Jay when he spoke fluently. I was the worst at this since I have a habit of focusing on what he is saying rather than how he is saying it. Over the last 6 months I haven’t improved that much, but I am trying.
That pretty much concluded the session, but the therapist always asked Jay how he thought things were going and how he felt about it. Practically every time we were there his number one complaint was that “Daddy never praises me” and that “he hasn’t done it in years”. It wasn’t completely true, although I do know I need to improve.
During the time between sessions, we are supposed to set aside a time to do an activity together with Jay where we can focus on his speaking and praise him when he doesn’t stutter. With our busy weeks though and his school, that’s turned out to be quite a problem for us. So what we’ve found ourselves doing, is during meal time (that we both try to be there for), we will talk like normal, and also praise him then. This seems to be working for us, and during weekends we’ll sit down and do a fun activity together where we can focus more on his speaking.
At the end of 6 months he has improved a lot, and is firmly at level 2, which is almost no stuttering. Sometimes he’ll slip back to a level 3, and some days he’s level 1 (no stuttering). I’m happy with his progress and we’ll continue to work with him (as per the therapist’s instructions), and am glad that we went for help when we did. The longer we wait when these things arise, the harder they are to correct.