About the presenter: Hermann Christmann is 49 years old. B.Sc. in electronics 1973. B. Com. in Management accounting 1977. Minored in psychology 1997. For many years he has been working as financial manager in various companies. He is a Person Who Stutters. He joined the Association for Stutterers in Denmark 1979, became treasurer and later on (1982-1985) chairman of the association. Member of the International Fluency Association (IFA) from 1990. Chair of the Training, Certification, and Standards Committee. During the later years he has been working exclusively on projects on stuttering, and on raising money for these projects. An outline of his current project is presented in the paper below. Co-author af a book and booklets on stuttering, and a video on childhood stuttering. Author and co-author af several articles on stuttering. Has presented at meetings and conferences in Denmark and abroad, including the two IFA-Congresses in Munich and San Francisco. Chair of the Registration Committee for the Third IFA Congress on Fluency Disorders which is to be held in Denmark, August 7 -11, 2000.

Intervention Towards Stuttering in Children

by Hermann Christmann
Denmark

Objective

The project "Intervention Toward Stuttering in Children" was carried out in 1998-1999 by The Association for Stutterers in Denmark with the objective of preventing children from growing up with stuttering becoming a handicap.

Background

Stuttering therapy in Denmark is almost exclusively run by the public sector, private practices treating stuttering are virtually non-existing. The Institutes of Speech and Hearing are based in the county administrations are responsible for the Treatment of adults (above 18 years af age) who stutter. The municipally based Pedagogical-Psychological Advice Offices, often organized as a part of the municipal school administrations, are responsible for the treatment of young children and school age children up to about 18 years af age. Severe cases af stuttering in children may be referred to the Institute of Speech and Hearing.

Denmark, twice the size of New Jersey, and with a five-million population is divided into 14 county administrations and 273 municipal administrations, some of the municipalities having quite small populations and hence very few school age stutterers, which in these small communities entails very little therapist training in the field of stuttering inevitably, under such circumstances, leading to deteriorating therapist skills. But even in comparatively large municipalities the work with stuttering is often rather instable and vulnerable, very often solely depending on enthusiastic SLP-individuals.

Rationale for implementing the project is the dissatisfaction on the present state expressed as well by therapists as by parents. The parents do neither feel the needs of their kids nor their own needs being met. And the therapists are dissatisfied with their non-sufficient basic training in stuttering, leaving many "afraid" of working with stuttering school kids, and with their averall working conditions being overloaded with working on a very broad range of issues in the speech-language-hearing fields. Further, the service level is very very different from one setting to another, which is really precarious, since you as a cosumer are obliged to exclusively receiving the service offered in your own municipality. You can't seek out services elsewhere.

Goals

The present project covered two counties comprising 50 municipalities. The objective of the project was broken down into four goals: 1. "Capturing" stuttering in young children as early as possible. 2. Establishing parent groups. 3. Through continuing education establishing a more uniform service level among municipalities. 4. Stuttering be regarded with the same seriousness as other disabilities.

One of the activities of the project was arranging a series of meetings with audiences consisting of therapists and parents. The speech therapists were approached and encouraged to come up with suggestions for enhancing their professional competence in the treatment of stuttering. The parents were urged to form parent groups.

Some few and tentative results

The project is still running, and the results therefore still are only few and at a preliminary stage. One interesting result in the gathering af suggestions showed to be the therapists' focusing on the needs of school age children. For about a decade the intervention toward young children has been emphasized, the speech therapists doing a great job in the prevention of stuttering. However, the therapists reported, some kids are stuttering, although seemingly generally not as severe as in past times, when entering school. And these school kids the therapists felt did not receive sufficient professional attention. All in all we have established a good co-operational atmosphere with speech therapists creating interesting working relationships.

The formation of parent groups has been a rather difficult task. Hence, we have contemplated various methods of how to locate and inviting the parents "out there" and motivating them entering into a parent group.

The full results will be reported at the 3rd IFA Congress on Fluency Disorders which is to be held August 7-11, 2000 in Denmark.

September 9, 1999