Treatment of School Age Children with the Lidcombe Program

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Re: Does Lidcombe Work?

From: Rosalee
Date: 06 Oct 2010
Time: 16:37:42 -0500
Remote Name: 65.92.23.238

Comments

I quite agree with you that treatment should not be provided unnecessarily and that we have a responsibility to provide the most effective and efficacious treatment during the preschool age years when the child may be the most amenable to treatment. You are right that a significant number of children recover naturally without treatment, however, at this time it is not possible to know in advance whether an individual child will recover spontaneously. A randomized controlled trial of the Lidcombe Programme compared to a control group of children that received no treatment was done in 2005 by Jones and colleagues and is published in the British Medical Journal. After nine months, although stuttering reduced in both groups the reduction of stuttering in the Lidcombe programme group was significantly and clinically greater than natural recovery. I cannot comment on the practices of other clinics, but in our clinic in Montreal we begin treatment in most cases after the child has been stuttering for at least 6 months and the majority of children treated have a history of stuttering for more than one year. Children who have not been stuttering for long and have a low risk for persistent stuttering are placed on a monitoring program after assessment. The parent monitors changes in stuttering or level of concern and is contacted monthly to evaluate any changes in the risk profile. Treatment is initiated when both parent and clinician agree that the timing is right for treatment. Over the past 2 years about 70% of the children monitored in this manner have recovered without treatment. The rest received the Lidcombe Programme. We hope that providing successful treatment in the preschool age years will help to avoid the negative consequence of stuttering that may make it more difficult to treat in school age. The paper in this conference is our first response to requests from clinicians on whether a simple treatment like the Lidcombe programme would be applicable to an older population. I have been present and have participated in many presentations of the Lidcombe Programme over the last 15 years and have not on any occasion felt that presenters became ‘angry’ with the audience. Sorry if you perceived it that way.


Last changed: 10/23/10