Strategies for addressing bullying with the school-age child who stutters.

This article outlines basic principles for helping school-age children who stutter to deal with bullying. Bullying may affect children's school performance and feelings of self-worth and lead to depression and feelings of helplessness and loneliness. Bullying can also exacerbate stuttering behavior, increase negative emotions and negative thoughts, and reduce therapy progress. A variety of techniques can be implemented as part of the overall treatment process to help children deal with bullying. These techniques can improve children's overall success in treatment by helping them develop socially appropriate responses to bullying, reduce or prevent negative emotion that may result from stuttering, and feel more comfortable in applying speech management skills learned in treatment.