The Rise and Fall of Operant Programs for the Treatment of Stammering

Abstract

In the sixties and seventies operant technology was used for the development of stammering treatment programs. Initial successes could not be maintained, which led to a marked decline. Some of the reasons for this are: lower effectivity than originally stated; limited clinical relevance; rigid structure which is uninspiring for the therapist; little room for individualizing the programs despite heterogeneity of clients. More recent treatments reduce these shortcomings with higher flexibility and use of cognitive techniques.

Evidence-based practice in stuttering: Some questions to consider

“…However, it is possible that an educational emphasis on the growing body of basic research on the nature of stuttering has led clinicians to apply an educationally enculturated form of clinical bias in dealing with accumulated evidence of neurophysiological, physiological, neurolinguistic and cognitive factors in the disorder. Because so much research into developmental disorders now emphasizes "constitutional" factors in their etiology, I do not find it surprising that surveys show a recent slight downturn in interest in the use of purely operant programs (Crichton- Smith, Wright, & Stackhouse, 2003;Kuhr, 1994) by clinicians. The "traditional" approaches tend to emphasize components that include fluency shaping, stuttering modification, densensitization and establishment of self-efficacy and locus of control (LOC), each of which has therapy goals grounded in part in neurophysiological research.…”

The Rise and Fall of Operant Programs for the Treatment of Stammering

“…We recently read the article by Ruhr [1], A number of issues were raised by Ruhr to which we would like to respond. We acknowledge that Ruhr definitely got one thing right, that is, we would say, 'Where are the data?…”