The Lidcombe Programme
Information About Speech Measures
Introduction:
A very important part of the Lidcombe Programme therapy is taking speech measures measuring your child's stammering or stuttering rate.
One of the first things the therapist will do, therefore, is to teach you how to measure the severity of your child's stutter in everyday speaking situations.
Reasons for this:
· It helps to give a picture of what is happening with your child's speech outside the clinic. As childhood stuttering can vary from day to day and from place to place, what the therapist sees in the clinic may be different from what is happening in your child's everyday life.
· It helps the therapist and parent talk clearly about the stutter. When you and the therapist both use the same words (or numbers) to describe the stutter, it is easier to be sure we are all talking about the same thing.
· It helps plan therapy. The sort of therapy will change as the stutter changes. Your therapist will teach you how to do this.
· It helps us to see that progress is being made and that your child's speech is improving.
· In Stage II of the programme (when stuttering has ceased to be a problem) it is important to be able to check that the stutter is not coming back.
Types of Speech Measures:
1. Severity Rating Scale:
The Severity Rating Scale is a 10 point scale where:
1 = no stutter at all
2 = extremely mild stuttering, probably only noticeable to parents and therapist.
3 = occasionally noticeable to others.
4 = noticeable to others.
and so on up to .
10 = extremely severe stuttering.
Your child may never have been have been at the top end of the scale.
Cont…
MK 2004
How to use the Severity Rating Scale:
· Usually you will be listening to your child throughout the day and then giving the stutter a score. (Your therapist will advise you if you need to do something different from this).
· Record your score on your graph at the end of the day.
· Remember you are NOT scoring the therapy practices.
· Bring the graph with you to the clinic every week so that you can look at it together and discuss what it means.
2. Percentage Syllables Stuttered
The therapist will use another speech measure called Percentage Syllables Stuttered, or % SS. You do not have to do this.
During a chat at the beginning of each therapy session, the therapist will count how many syllables your child says, and how many stutters there were. This is then converted into a percentage and recorded on the same graph as your Severity Ratings..
The Severity Rating Scale and the Percentage Syllables Stuttered (%SS) measure stuttering in different ways so they will not always be the same as each other. They will however probably follow a similar pattern. Your therapist will explain what the measures mean and how to use them to help your child.
An example of a severity rating
MK 2004