The Effects of Parent-Focused Slow Relaxed Speech Intervention on Articulation Rate, Response Time Latency, and Fluency in Preschool Children Who Stutter.

Purpose: This study investigated the effects of an intervention to reduce caregivers' articulation rates with children who stutter on (a) disfluency, (b) caregiver and child's articulation rates, and (c) caregiver and child's response time latency (RTL).

Method: Seventeen caregivers and their preschool children who stuttered participated in a group study of treatment outcomes. One speech sample was collected as a baseline, and 2 samples were collected after treatment. Posttreatment samples were of caregivers speaking as they typically would and using reduced articulation rates.

Results: Caregivers reduced articulation rates significantly in the 2 posttreatment samples, and a significant decrease of stuttering-like disfluencies (SLD) was found in the children in those 2 samples. No direct relationship was found between the caregiver's articulation rate and RTL, and there was a small correlation of RTL with the lower levels of SLD found postintervention. No significant relationships were found between the reduced levels of SLD and articulation rates for either caregivers or children.

Conclusions: Results suggest caregivers can be trained to slow their speech, and children increased their fluency at the end of a program designed to slow caregiver articulation. The intentionally slower rate of the caregivers, however, was not significantly related to fluency.