Stuttering therapy for children, both preschool and school-age, has been offered in a variety of settings and formats, for example in schools, university clinics, outpatient clinics, and private practices. Therapy itself is offered either in a group setting or a one-to-one basis in many of these settings. In recent years, there has been an increase in specialized camps (generally offered in the summer) for children who stutter. Camps for children who stutter vary in duration and offer a combination of group and individual therapy in addition to activities designed to address the affective and cognitive aspects of stuttering and increase overall communicative effectiveness. This paper provides an overview and description of five such camps for children who stutter to help spread awareness and familiarize the listener with the role camps play in helping children who stutter. Preliminary outcome data on the various goals targeted within some of the camps is included; however, that is not the purpose of this paper.
Providing speech and language services in the school setting can be challenging, especially for complex problems such as stuttering and other fluency disorders. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) feel less comfortable working with students who have fluency disorders, which makes problem solving around delivering these services even more difficult. The purpose of this article is to identify three categories of challenges school-based therapists may face when evaluating and treating this population. The challenges discussed in this article are drawn from our literature, interviews with several practicing therapists, and the authors' experiences providing assessment and therapy to school-age children, as well as consultations and in-services for school-based SLPs. We provide suggestions for facilitating positive change across these challenges.
The role of the fluency specialist, including how the school-based speech-language pathologist (SLP) and specialist can coordinate effective service for children who stutter is the primary focus of this article. The fluency specialist, who is either an employee of the school district or an outside consultant, addresses the needs of a particular child and/or clinician. Basic challenges of providing fluency intervention in a school setting and locating a fluency specialist with whom to work are addressed. The optimal skills that fluency specialists need to demonstrate are addressed in relation to their ability to assist professionals in their treatment of a stuttering disorder. To further clarify the coordination process between the fluency specialist and the school-based SLP, three models of collaboration are elaborated, all in pursuit of providing the highest quality of service possible for children who stutter in the school setting.
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