This clinical experiment challenges the assumption that the verbal contingency request for self-correction contributes to treatment efficacy. Results suggest the need for further research to explore this issue.

Purpose The Lidcombe Program is an efficacious and effective intervention for early stuttering. The treatment is based on parent verbal response contingent stimulation procedures, which are assumed to be responsible for treatment effect. The present trial tested this assumption. Method The design was a parallel, open plan, noninferiority randomized controlled trial. In the experimental arm, the five Lidcombe Program verbal contingencies were removed from parent instruction. The primary outcome was beyond-clinic percentage syllables stuttered at 18-month follow-up. Seventy-four children and their parents were randomized to one of the two treatment arms. Results Findings of noninferiority were inconclusive for the primary outcome of stuttering severity, based on a margin of 1.0 percentage syllables stuttered. Conclusions The inconclusive finding of noninferiority means it is possible that verbal contingencies make some contribution to the Lidcombe Program treatment effect. However, considering all primary and secondary outcomes, an overriding impression from the trial is a similarity of outcomes between the control and experimental arms. The clinical applications of the trial are discussed, along with further research that is needed.

Stuttering is a speech disorder, with onset often occurring in the preschool years. The prevalence of stuttering in young children is much higher than that in the general population, suggesting a high rate of recovery. However, we are unable to predict which children will recover without treatment, and it is widely acknowledged that stuttering therapy during childhood provides the best safeguard against chronic stuttering. This review reports on current evidence-based stuttering treatment options for preschoolers through to adolescents. We discuss the clinical challenges associated with treating pediatric clients who stutter at different stages of development and explore potential areas of treatment research that might serve to advance current clinical practice in the future.

Oral narrative assessments are important for diagnosis of language disorders in school-age children so scoring needs to be reliable and consistent. This study explored the impact of training on the variability of story grammar scores in children’s oral narrative assessments scored by multiple raters. Fifty-one speech pathologists and 19 final-year speech pathology students attended training workshops on oral narrative assessment scoring and analysis. Participants scored two oral narratives prompted by two different story stimuli and produced by two children of differing ages. Demographic information, story grammar scores and a confidence survey were collected pre- and post-training. The total story grammar score changed significantly for one of the two oral narratives. A significant effect was observed for rater years of experience and the change in total story grammar scores post training, with undergraduate students showing the greatest change. Two story grammar elements, character and attempt, changed significantly for both stories, with an overall trend of increased element scores post-training. Confidence ratings also increased post-training. Findings indicated that training via an interactive workshop can reduce rater variability when using researcher-developed narrative scoring systems.

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