31 Jul 2015
Demands and Capacities and Lidcombe: Roughly Equal Preschool Stuttering Treatments at 18 Months Post Treatment Onset (Ep. 548)
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS
Dr. Marie-Christine Franken and Caroline de Sonneville-Koedoot discuss their eagerly awaited, just published, rigorous scientific study Direct versus Indirect Treatment for Preschool Children who Stutter: The RESTART Randomized Trial. A major finding reported in the study and on StutterTalk today is that treatment results for Lidcombe and RESTART-DCM treatment methods are very similar at 18 months post treatment onset. In response to a question formulated from this Stuttering Brain blog post, Dr. Franken shares on StutterTalk today that “At this moment I think it would be unscientific to claim that the Lidcombe Program is the best stuttering treatment.”
Franken, de Sonneville-Koedoot and their colleagues conducted a randomized controlled trial with an 18 month follow-up with 199 children who stutter between the ages of 3-6. All subjects had been stuttering for at least 6 months. 99 children received the Lidcombe Program treatment, a direct treatment. 100 children received the RESTART-DCM treatment, an indirect treatment. The researchers concluded that “results imply that at 18 months post treatment onset, both treatments are roughly equal in treating developmental stuttering in ways that surpass expectations of natural recovery.”
[Update – a few days after this interview, Dr. Tom Weidig at the Stuttering Brain blog published this excellent post The most important conclusions from the Franken study on early-childhood intervention.]
Dr. Marie-Christine Franken is a Specialist Fluency Therapist and the Speech-Language Research Lead at the Speech & Hearing Department of Erasmus University MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Dr. Franken and her team of researchers published a much discussed 2005 pilot study which compared Lidcombe Treatment and DCM Treatment. Dr. Franken recently appeared on StutterTalk to answer listener questions about Preschool Stuttering and Its Treatment (Ep. 487).
Caroline de Sonneville-Koedoot is a PhD student at Erasmus University, in the Department of Health Policy and Management, the Netherlands, and a speech-language pathologist. Her current research focuses on the cost-effectiveness of therapy for children who stutter.
Links related to today’s episode:
23 May 2016
Lidcombe Program Outcomes in a Student-Led Stuttering Clinic (Ep. 580)
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS
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.
Related Links: