Lidcombe Program Outcomes in a Student-Led Stuttering Clinic (Ep. 580)

Michelle Swift, PhD, Finders University
Michelle Swift, PhD, Flinders University

Dr. Michelle Swift joins Peter Reitzes to discuss her study “Case file audit of Lidcombe program outcomes in a student-led stuttering clinic.” This research is the focus of much conversation right now in the stuttering community.

While the study reports that student clinicians “can achieve the same short-term treatment outcomes for children who stutter using the Lidcombe Program as those reported in the current published literature,” the study also reports that a small majority of families dropped out of treatment and that, on average, student clinicians needed more sessions per family to achieve positive outcomes. Dr. Swift is asked if other treatments should be used at times instead of Lidcombe or integrated with Lidcombe. Dr. Swift suggests that one possible reason for the high drop out rates is that families sometimes have to switch student clinicians during treatment. At the end of today’s episode Dr. Swift is asked to consider the possibility that such research may lead some to question wether students are qualified to treat preschoolers who stutter with Lidcombe.

Michelle Swift, PhD, is a lecturer and clinical educator in fluency disorders for the Flinders University Speech Pathology program in Adelaide, South Australia. Dr. Swift is co-author of the new and much discussed study, Case file audit of Lidcombe program outcomes in a student-led stuttering clinic. The study is published in the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.

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