Describes a clinical service delivery model for use with African-American children who stutter and their families. The model emphasizes the clinical importance of culture-based factors such as myths, oral presentation styles, narrative discourse styles, and cognitive learning styles, as well as rules for interaction and turn-taking. (Author/DB)

This booklet is written for parents who are concerned about the speech of their young child. The goal of the booklet is to enable parents to begin working with their child, and a speech clinician if necessary, with a better understanding of the problem. The booklet contains answers to common parental questions such as: (1) Does my child stutter?…

A rating scale to measure communication attitudes that distinguish stutterers from nonstutterers was tested for validity and reliability and used to determine when stutterers in speech therapy changed their attitudes to normal. (MYS)

Presented is a series of studies in which the efficacy of applying operant conditioning methodologies to the problem of stuttering was examined. One requirement was that the designed therapeutic programs utilize only verbal contingent stimuli (reinforcers and punishers) in the traditional therapeutic setting (client and therapist seated together…

Indiana school speech-language pathologists (n=157) responded to a survey regarding their educational and clinical preparation and current clinical practices with people who stutter. Respondents reported receiving insufficient academic and clinical preparation to work with people who stutter. Nearly half reported that their clinical skills are…

This article describes a conceptual framework for developing a multifaceted, individualized treatment program for young children who stutter, their families, and their preschool or day-care staff. Suggestions are provided for reducing environmental demands through education, affective support, and behavior change facilitation. Direct therapy…

This article discusses diagnostic considerations in identifying coexisting communication disorders and in differentiating between stuttering and secondary fluency disorders related to language formulation. Options for structuring therapy for coexisting problems are evaluated, including blended, lagged, and cycled approaches. Concerns implicit in…

An approach to enlisting the involvement of school personnel in fluency assessment and treatment programs is described. The approach involves observations of students in a variety of academic and social situations and information exchange meetings between clinician and school personnel. A classroom-based fluency program using collaborative service…

A study investigated whether age, gender, period from onset to treatment, and stuttering severity related to the required treatment time of 250 preschoolers who completed the Lidcombe Program. Data indicate that, for a short period after stuttering onset, a short delay in treatment did not appear to increase treatment time. (Contains references.)…

Pragmatics, the use of language in context, has been investigated only recently in the language used by children who stutter (CWS). Historically, researchers compared the length and complexity of the syntactic constructions produced by these children with those of children who do not stutter (CWNS) and generally found the CWS to be relatively…

The purpose of this program is to simplify and objectify the process of data-gathering and behavior modification involved in diagnosing and treating stuttering and related dysfluency problems. Following an introduction, the assessment process is described; this involves a complete evaluation of the child's speech and language and an assessment of…

Following a literature review on speech and language development of twins, case studies are presented of six sets of identical twins screened for entrance into kindergarten. Five sets of the twins and one boy from the sixth set failed to pass the screening test, particularly the speech and language section, and were referred for therapy to correct…