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Re: Should therapists use Lidcombe?

From: Elisabeth Harrison
Date: 15 Oct 2008
Time: 20:32:46 -0500
Remote Name: 137.111.158.166

Comments

Sue, there’s no doubt that you’re correct when you write about the relative strength of the Lidcombe Program’s evidence base when compared to other interventions for early stuttering. I don’t think that it’s overstating the current situation to say that the evidence of treatment efficacy for the LP is stronger than for any other stuttering treatment for preschool age children. No doubt that will change in the future when other - better – treatments emerge. For the few (see Laura Justice’s provocative editorial in the Aug 2008 Am J of Sp-Lang Path) speech pathology researchers who try to do it, developing a new treatment and establishing high quality evidence of its efficacy is hard work that is slow, frustrating, and expensive. So while I applaud Franken et al.’s (2005) intentions, I agree with you that it’s somewhat difficult to interpret the findings of their initial study. One reason for this is uncertainty about one of the treatments. Since I don’t use DCM treatment I won’t comment on how that’s described, but I can say that the treatment described as ‘Lidcombe Program’ differs from that outlined in the ‘Lidcombe Program Manual’ (www3.fhs.usyd.edu.au/asrcwww/Downloads/index.htm) in significant ways e.g. the use and timing of the parental verbal contingencies, and structured and unstructured treatment conversations.


Last changed: 10/15/08