Developing treatment for adolescents who stutter: a phase I trial of the Camperdown Program.

PURPOSE: To investigate in detail how adolescents who stutter perform during treatment, with the aim of informing treatment development for this age group.

METHOD: The Camperdown Program was conducted with 3 adolescents who stutter. Their performance during treatment was recorded in detail, and outcome measures were collected before treatment and on 5 occasions after treatment.

RESULTS

One participant responded extremely well to treatment, with percentage of syllables stuttered (%SS) scores at 12 months follow-up around 1%. In addition, his speech naturalness was within normal limits. Another participant withdrew from treatment during maintenance, yet he still approximately halved his pretreatment %SS scores and was also sounding natural after treatment. This participant was satisfied with his treatment outcome. A third participant did not reach maintenance and did not benefit from the treatment.

CONCLUSION

The adolescent who succeeded in treatment presented with a high level of self-confidence and maturity. When examining the factors that seemed to impact on treatment outcome, an underlying theme of decreased parent influence and increased peer influence and self-direction was detected. These are fundamental during the journey through adolescence from childhood to adulthood. Future directions in developing treatments for adolescents are discussed.