Treating Stuttering in a Preschool Child With Syllable Timed Speech: A Case Report

In this article we report the use of a simple, non-programmed, syllable timed speech procedure to treat stuttering in a 3-year-old boy with a 2-year history of stuttering. The treatment involved the boy and his parents visiting the clinic 7 times, and the parents modelling syllable timed speech 2 to 6 times per day for 5- to 10-minute intervals in and around the home. After 7 weeks, clinic measures and objective, blinded measures of speech beyond the clinic showed stuttering frequency below 1.0% syllables stuttered. Along with low severity ratings made by the parent each day, this meets the stuttering criteria of another, proven treatment for early stuttering intervention. However, in this study reduction in stuttering was achieved with a simpler and more cost efficient procedure. With the caveat that this is a non-experimental case report, we discuss its potential implications.