Speech Therapy for Stuttering: Exercises to Help a Stuttering Child

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Speech and Language Kids Podcast 30 min 1 speaker 6 chapters transcribed 1 hour ago

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What is the overall purpose of this episode on stuttering therapy?

Keri Clark 0:00

Hey everybody, this is Keri Clark and you are listening to episode number 60 of the Speech and Language Kids podcast. This is the podcast with resources and activities for children with speech and language delays, as well as for their speech therapists and their parents and anyone else who is interested

Carrie Clark 0:19

in helping these kiddos. So our topic today is stuttering. We are talking about some stuttering activities, actual activities that you can do in therapy to kind of get you going on the right path and help these kiddos with their stuttering. So we're going to talk about Activities for preschoolers, activities for elementary school students, as well as activities for middle schoolers and high schoolers. So I have, we're going to get to that in a minute, but I have put together a really awesome cheat sheet for you for stuttering. This is a PDF that you can download for free and it includes the different types of stuttering therapy. So if you're not really sure what your options are in terms of what types of therapy to do with these kiddos,

Carrie Clark 1:04

It includes all of the information about that as well as all the activities that I'm going to mention today. So definitely head over to the website and get that download because that will be really helpful for you, especially so you don't have to actually pay attention and keep notes the entire time. You can just listen and be like, oh yeah, that sounds nice. So when you get a chance, head on over to speechandlanguagekids.com slash episode 60, episode 60. And that will give you the show notes to this one. Plus there is a button right there at the top that says something about downloading the cheat sheets, the stuttering cheat sheets PDF. So you can just click that button and it'll send it right on over to your email address.

Carrie Clark 1:46

So definitely go over to the website and check that out. I think that'll be a really good tool for you. And I spent a lot of time putting that together. So I think you're going to enjoy that. Okay, so let's go ahead and break into the different activities that we have. Like I said, I'm going to break this into preschoolers, elementary school, and middle school, high school. So if you are not wanting the earlier groups and you want to kind of skip ahead, feel free to do so. Just kind of start skipping until you find the part where I'm talking about the age that works for you. So let's start with our preschoolers. Okay, now there are two different types of stuttering therapy you can do with preschoolers.

Carrie Clark 2:28

And by preschoolers, I'm talking age three through five years typically. But the two different types are indirect therapy and direct therapy. And the difference here is that in indirect therapy,

Why should listeners download the free stuttering cheat‑sheet PDF?

Carrie Clark 2:39

You're not really telling the child that he's stuttering. You're not really directly addressing his stuttering. You're just kind of trying to introduce some different techniques that may help him be more fluent without drawing a lot of attention to it. And then in direct therapy, you would be actually talking about the child stuttering and actually directly affecting it in therapy. So why would we want to do indirect therapy? Well, for a lot of kiddos who are in this preschool age, especially our three and four year olds, a lot of these kiddos start stuttering just as a normal part of speech and language development. A lot of kids go through normal preschool stuttering. And they just kind of grow out of it as their speech and language mechanisms get to the point where they're able to kind of keep up with what they want to say.

Carrie Clark 3:34

We see a lot of kids that have just kind of this natural recovery that don't really need therapy. But the problem is you don't really know which kiddos are going to be the ones to recover naturally and which ones are going to need something a little more direct. So a lot of times we'll start a kiddo that's young, like a three-year-old or a four-year-old in indirect therapy. And it'll be just kind of working around the problem, just trying to affect their rate and their stress and just kind of making it a little more relaxed so that they are able to become more fluent.

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Chapters

6 chapters

1 What is the overall purpose of this episode on stuttering therapy? 0:00–2:39 2 Why should listeners download the free stuttering cheat‑sheet PDF? 2:39–6:29 3 How do you decide whether to use indirect or direct therapy with preschoolers? 6:29–10:31 4 What are effective indirect‑therapy activities for preschool children who stutter? 10:31–15:51 5 How can direct‑therapy exercises help preschoolers identify and control bumpy vs. smooth speech? 15:51–24:37 6 Which respiratory‑system lessons and smooth‑speech games work best for elementary‑age students? 24:37–30:26

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Carrie Clark 28 min

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Topics in this episode

Speech and Language Kids podcast 1 speechandlanguagekids.com 1 Keri Clark 1 stuttering 2 response contingency therapy 1 preparatory set 1 stuttering.org 1 stuttering modification 1 respiratory system 1 fluency shaping 1 direct therapy 1 indirect therapy 1

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Recorded13 Jun 2016

Publisherspeechandlanguagekids.com ↗

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Show notes

Speech Therapy for Stuttering: Exercises to Help a Stuttering ChildHow can we help children and teens who stutter? There are many speech therapy techniques and exercises that we can use to help individuals speak more fluently. On this page, we’ll show you how to do speech therapy for stuttering at the different age levels. We’ll show you the best exercises, strategies, and therapy materials to use when helping children and teens who stutter. Stuttering CurriculumA Structured Program for Helping Children who Stutter (in Speech Therapy or at Home)View the Stuttering CurriculumStuttering Therapy Exercises and Techniques: The purpose of speech therapy for children who stutter is to help them learn how to communicate effectively and easily. Sometimes that means eliminating the stutter all together, such as with preschoolers experiencing developmental disfluencies. But often, especially for our older clients, the stuttering may never fully go away. Our job then is to help them communicate to their best ability and to help them learn how to handle stuttering and disfluencies when they arise. Take a look at our therapy ideas below. Scroll down to the age group that you are working with and see what we recommend at each of these ages. Or, check out our Full Stuttering Curriculum here. Jump to an Age Group: Preschoolers Elementary School Middle School/High School Stuttering Therapy Techniques for Preschoolers:Many preschoolers go through periods of dysfluency where they will stutter off and on for a while. This happens as their mouths are struggling to keep up with all of the things that their developing minds want to say. For many children, this stuttering goes away on its own. For others, they will develop persistent stuttering that will require more therapy. Here are the “red flags” or warning signs that may indicate that a child is more likely to have persistent stuttering that will require therapy: A parent, sibling, or other family member who still stutters Stuttering starts after age 3 ½ Stuttering has been occurring for at least 6 months Preschooler is a male The child has other speech sound errors or trouble being understood The child’s language skills are advanced, delayed, or disordered Source: http://www.stutteringhelp.org/risk-factors Stuttering Therapy Activities for Preschoolers For preschoolers, it’s usually a good idea to begin with indirect therapy as this will promote smoother speech without directly talking about the stutter (which can sometimes upset a child or cause more pressure). If indirect therapy doesn’t work, or if the child is already upset by his/her stuttering, we can move to direct therapy activities. Indirect Therapy: Identify fast vs. slow speech from the therapist Practice using fast and slow speech for the child Practice slow, smooth, exaggerated speech Direct Therapy: Identify bumpy vs. smooth in the therapist’s speech Practice bumpy and smooth speech for the child Identify the child’s speech as bumpy or smooth during play Ask the child if his speech was bumpy or smooth Response Contingency: Praise/Reinforce smooth speech and provide immediate, direct corrective feedback for disfluent speech (“Oops, that was bumpy, let’s try it again) Stuttering Therapy Techniques for Elementary Age Children:Once children enter school, if they are still stuttering then we are ready to start addressing the stuttering directly. The stuttering therapy techniques you use at this age will depend on what each child needs. But here are some simple stuttering therapy activities you can use to help children who stutter communicate more easily: Stuttering Therapy Activities for Elementary School Aged Children: 1. Learn About the Respiratory System Start by doing a lesson all about the respiratory system. Use pictures, charts, models, or whatever you have available to you. Practice inhalation and exhalation, as well as deep and shallow breathing with the students. Talk about how we speak on exhalations and practice taking a deep breath in and then slowly exhaling while saying a single word. Gradually increase to speaking in longer phrases and sentences while using gentle exhalations. Talk about breathing timing during conversations (when to take a breath). 2. Practice Smooth, Prolonged Speech while Playing Games Take whatever games you have available and practice using smooth, prolonged speech during those games. For example, you can have children play “Go Fish” and make sure they slow down and elongate their words when asking “Do you have a…”. Or, you can have them take a turn in a board game and use their slow, smooth speech to describe what happened (ex: “I rolled a four. I’m going to move four spaces”). 3. Learn About the Types of Stuttering Help students learn about the different types of stuttering and which ones they do. Help them identify when they have stuttered and what type it was. Practice the different types of stutters to desensitize them to it. 4. Practice Fluency Shaping Techniques Practice different techniques that help a child speak fluently for a period of time. These include slow/stretchy speech, easy onset, yawn-sigh, etc. 4. Teach the Students Stuttering Modification Techniques Help the students learn the different techniques they can use if they anticipate a stutter (preparatory set), are in the middle of a stutter (pull-out), or have stuttered and can’t move on (cancellations). Practice demonstrating these while playing games (pretend to stutter so you can use a technique). Stuttering Therapy Techniques for Middle School/High School Clients:Now we’re ready to dive deeper. Older clients who stutter can benefit from learning these stuttering therapy techniques and practicing with these stuttering therapy activities: Speech Modification (Fluency Shaping) Techniques: Speech modification (including fluency shaping) strategies (Bothe, 2002; Guitar, 1982, 2013) include a variety of techniques that aim to make changes to the timing and tension of speech production or that alter the timing of pauses between syllables and words. These modifications are used regardless of whether a particular word is expected to be produced fluently. Strategies associated with speech modification include: rate control, continuous phonation, prolonged syllables, easy onset, light articulatory contact. Other speech modification strategies, including appropriate use of pausing, are used not only to increase the likelihood of fluent speech production but also to improve overall communication skills (e.g., intelligibility, message clarity, etc.). In addition to being used for improving communication skills, pausing is also an effective method of rate control. Keep in mind the child may be self-conscious about using these techniques. Stuttering Modification Strategies (Reducing Physical Tension/Struggle) Identify where in the speech mechanism physical tension is and release it. Traditional stuttering modification strategies include preparatory set, pull-out, and cancellation and require a child to identify a moment of disfluency before, during, or after it occurs, making adjustments to reduce tension and struggle. The specific strategy that is selected will depend on when the client “catches” the disfluency, whether it be following a moment, in the moment, or in anticipation of the moment of disfluency (Van Riper, 1973). These strategies, like speech modification strategies, are introduced along a hierarchy of speaking situations that varies both with linguistic demands and with the stressors of the environment. Strategies For Reducing Negative Reactions (Personal And Environmental Context) Desensitization Cognitive Restructuring Self-Disclosure Support Group (grouping your kiddos who stutter) Click here to access our guided program for addressing negative emotions for clients who stutter (Inside The Curriculum) A Structured Curriculum for Stuttering Therapy:Stuttering CurriculumA Structured Program for Helping Children who Stutter (in Speech Therapy or at Home)View the Stuttering CurriculumListen to this as a podcast:About the Author: Carrie Clark, MA CCC-SLPHi, I’m Carrie! I’m a speech-language pathologist from Columbia, Missouri, USA. I’ve worked with children and teenagers of all ages in schools, preschools, and even my own private practice. I love digging through the research on speech and language topics and breaking it down into step-by-step plans for my followers. Fun Fact: I have a son with sensory seeking and some sensory avoiding behaviors. As I type this, he is on my lap while I bounce him up and down on my knees because we are waiting for his brother to be done in a class. We’ve found that giving him deep pressure is the best way to help his sensory needs. We do big squeezes, wrap him in blankets, and push down on his head. That one was the weirdest for me because I don’t enjoy that type of sensory but he LOVES it. I just push on his head and he calms right down! Connect with Me: Carrie’s Best Tools to Simplify your Life:You have a lot on your plate. Let me help with that! I’ve put together my best resources here. Whether you’re streamlining your job as a speech-language professional, helping your child with his communication challenges, or trying to meet the diverse needs of your students, I’ve got you covered. Choose the resource that you need most right now: Watch “Quick Tip” Videos on InstagramAccess Carrie’s Free Material LibraryGet Materials and Support in The HubGrab our Full Language Curriculum The post Speech Therapy for Stuttering: Exercises to Help a Stuttering Child appeared first on Speech And Language Kids.

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