Background: The Rotterdam Evaluation Study of Stuttering Therapy randomized trial (RESTART) was seminal, comparing the Lidcombe Program with RESTART Demands and Capacities Model-based treatment (RESTART-DCM) for pre-school age children who stutter. Aims: To critique the methods of the RESTART trial to develop guidelines for its systematic…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to discuss the controversial topic of stuttering in preschool children and how to evaluate the options for treatment, emphasizing the role of external research evidence. Method: A hypothetical but realistic case study of a 3-year-old boy who stutters is described. Two contrasting approaches to treatment are…

Purpose: The purpose of the present clinical forum is to compare how 2 clinicians might select among therapy options for a preschool-aged child who presents with stuttering close to onset. Method: I discuss approaches to full evaluation of the child's profile, advisement of evidence-based practice options open to the family, the need for…

As children age, they are less likely to experience spontaneous recovery from stuttering and are likely to develop negative attitudes about talking, necessitating counselling to address these feelings. The current exploratory case study examines children's response to traditional speech therapy to address fluency combined with a programmed message…

Purpose: This study investigated the effects of an intervention to reduce caregivers' articulation rates with children who stutter on (a) disfluency, (b) caregiver and child's articulation rates, and (c) caregiver and child's response time latency (RTL). Method: Seventeen caregivers and their preschool children who stuttered participated in a…

Purpose: This study reports findings from a clinical trial that implemented an early stuttering treatment program integrated with evidence-based parenting support (EBPS) to children who stutter (CWS) with concomitant self-regulation challenges manifested in elevated attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (eADHD) symptoms and compared those…

Purpose: The Lidcombe Program is an operant treatment for early stuttering shown with meta-analysis to have a favorable odds ratio. However, many clients are unable to access the treatment because of distance and lifestyle factors. In this Phase I trial, we explored the potential efficacy, practicality, and viability of an Internet webcam Lidcombe…

Purpose: This study adds to the Lidcombe Program evidence base by comparing individual and group treatment of preschoolers who stutter. Method: A randomized controlled trial of 54 preschoolers was designed to establish whether group delivery outcomes were not inferior to the individual model. The group arm used a rolling group model, in which a…

Purpose: Stuttering involves a breakdown in the speech motor system. We address whether stuttering in its early stage is specific to the speech motor system or whether its impact is observable across motor systems. Method: As an extension of Olander, Smith, and Zelaznik (2010), we measured bimanual motor timing performance in 115 children: 70…

This report presents the results of an experimental investigation of the effects of a syllable-timed speech treatment on three stuttering preschool children. Syllable-timed speech involves speaking with minimal differentiation in linguistic stress across syllables. Three children were studied in a multiple baseline across participants design, with…

Purpose: To investigate the efficacy of parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) with young children who stutter. Method: This is a longitudinal, multiple single-subject study. The participants were 6 children aged 3;3-4;10 [years;months] who had been stuttering for longer than 12 months. Therapy consisted of 6 sessions of clinic-based therapy and…

Purpose: To report long-term outcomes of the first 15 preschool children treated with the Lidcombe Program by speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who were inexperienced with the program and independent of the program developers. Research questions were: Would the treatment have a similar outcome with inexperienced SLPs compared to outcomes when…

Background: In the Lidcombe Program of Early Stuttering Intervention, parents present verbal contingencies for stutter-free and stuttered speech in everyday situations. A previous randomized controlled trial of the programme with preschool-age children from 2005, conducted in two public speech clinics in New Zealand, showed that the odds of…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to present a detailed description of a family-focused treatment for preschool children who stutter that addresses communication behaviors and attitudinal reactions that children and their parents may exhibit in reaction to stuttering, as well as a preliminary evaluation of the outcomes of that treatment.…

Knowledge of variables that predict treatment time is of benefit in deciding when to start treatment for early stuttering. To date, the only variable clearly related to treatment time with the Lidcombe Program is pre-treatment stuttering frequency. Previous studies have shown that children whose stuttering is more severe take longer to complete…