Lidcombe Program for Stuttering
The Lidcombe Program is a behavioral treatment for children who stutter who are younger than 6 years. It may be suitable for some older children.
Treatment
The treatment is direct. This means that it involves the parent commenting directly about the child’s speech. This parent feedback needs to be generally positive. The parent comments primarily when the child speaks without stuttering and only occasionally when the child stutters. The parent does not comment on the child’s speech all the time, but chooses specific times during the day during which to give the child feedback.
The treatment is administered by a parent or carer in the child’s everyday environment. Parents learn how to do the treatment during weekly visits to the speech-language pathologist.
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During these visits, the speech-language pathologist teaches the parent by demonstrating various features of the treatment, observing the parent do the treatment, and giving parents feedback about how they are going with the treatment.
Treatment Stages
The Lidcombe Program has two stages.
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Stage 1 - The parent conducts the treatment each day and the parent and child attend the speech clinic once a week. This continues until stuttering either is gone or reaches an extremely low level.
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Stage 2 - The aim of Stage 2 is to keep stuttering from returning. Maintenance starts at this time and lasts around a year.
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