Abstract:
Services offered by clinical psychologists to people with neurological disorders
have been limited and this is certainly true for the treatment of stuttering.
Evidence suggests stuttering that begins in early childhood is a developmental
disorder involving the speech-motor neural systems. The consequence of having a
stutter is an involuntary disruption to speech that may vary in severity depending
on emotional status or environmental context. Generally, the stutter becomes more
entrenched and severe as a person who stutters (PWS) enters adolescence and
adulthood, and it therefore becomes more difficult to treat. While a pws can often
cope and adapt successfully with their disfluency disorder, a substantial minority
are at risk of developing abnormal levels of anxiety and developing social fears
that may impede educational and vocational development. Many may also adopt
helpless and fatalistic coping strategies. However, state-of-the-art psychological
treatments that address the speech disorder and the concurrent psychological
distress have been shown to substantially reduce stuttering severity. For instance,
recent clinical trials involving cognitive-behavioural treatment with children and
adolescents who stutter demonstrate great potential for enhancing the quality of
the lives of PWS. These trials suggest that clinical psychologist services that
utilise similar cognitive therapy approaches could result in immediate and longterm
improvements in life outcomes for PWS of all ages.
