We offer therapy for children who stutter of all ages. Therapy will involve:
- Tailoring a therapy program to suit your child and family
- Training you how to do therapy with your child at home
- Training you to listen to and measure your child’s stuttering
- Helping your child manage any negative comments they may receive about their stuttering
- Building positive and confident attitudes to communication
- A supportive environment where you and your child receive reassurance and support
We understand that every child and family is different. There is a range of therapy approaches for young children who stutter. After discussion with you, we will recommend an approach which we feel will most benefit your child, and tailor it to suit your family.
Preschoolers are at the ideal age to begin stuttering therapy. Preschoolers are highly responsive to stuttering therapy, and they usually find therapy fun and rewarding. Many children of this age are not yet aware of their stuttering, and do not even realise they are doing speech therapy; their experience of therapy is time spent playing games and looking at books with a parent.
For preschool children who stutter in Australia, the Lidcombe Program is commonly used, but we also use The Westmead Program, The Oakville Program and Restart Demands and Capacities Model (Restart-DCM). All therapies require parents to attend speech therapy appointments with children and complete daily practice.
Children in primary school are also well placed to start stuttering therapy. Primary school children are often motivated to reduce their stuttering. We are aware that stuttering therapy in primary school children needs extra sensitivity as a school-aged child who stutters may be aware of their stuttering, have received negative comments about it, have had previous therapy experiences, have negative beliefs about their stuttering and have poor self-confidence.
Primary school-aged children are actively involved in their therapy. Parents attend sessions with children and complete daily practice which is tailored to a child’s interests. In this age-group there is not a single stand-out therapy, rather there are several therapies, each of which may be effective for one child but ineffective for another. The most common therapies for primary school-aged children are The Lidcombe Program, The Oakville Program and Self-Imposed Time-Out. Together we will experiment and decide which therapy best suits your child.
We offer therapy for school-age children at our Telehealth Clinic and our Melbourne Clinic. During telehealth therapy most of the time we will observe you talking with your child, often while looking at a book or playing a game. Research has shown that children who receive telehealth therapy progress as quickly as children who attend therapy in a clinic. If you wish to learn more about our clinic, please click here.
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