Stuttering and Cluttering
Our speech pathologists assist clients of all ages who need support with stuttering or cluttering.
We work with people experiencing these challenges to reach their full communication potential and our experience and comprehensive training allows us to provide evidence-based treatment tailored to people’s specific needs.
What is stuttering?
Stuttering occurs due to an interruption in speech production, and can involve the repetition of sounds or syllables, parts of words, whole words or phrases.
In some cases a stutter features what are known as “prolongations”, which are a stretching out of the sound in a word, or a “block”, which involves the complete cessation of airflow.
Occasionally stutters can involve secondary features, including (but not limited to): eye blinking, finger tapping, head nodding, and eye rolling.
Stuttering is often experienced by the speaker as a loss of control over speech. Stuttering can lead to a negative communication attitude. The internal aspects of stuttering often have more impact on a person’s communication than the audible speech interruptions.
What is cluttering?
Cluttering affects someone’s ability to convey messages clearly and concisely. Individuals with cluttered speech often report that people have difficulty understanding them due to their speech sounding rapid, unclear and/or disorganised, as well as difficulties with the clarity of their speech, and/or the organisation or relevance of their message.
There are various programs to help with specific communication concerns at different ages. Your therapist will make suggestions regarding which options may suit you, and together you will decide on an approach that fits you best.
Therapy for preschool children is usually delivered by parents at home with weekly or fortnightly clinic sessions for the speech pathologist to train the parents.
Therapy for school-aged children and adolescents involves therapy sessions and home practice for both the child and the parent working on reducing the frequency or effort of stuttering and dealing with negative communications attitudes. Therapy sessions are often 2-3 weeks apart, giving time to practise and work around other commitments.
Therapy for adults depends on a client’s goals, which may include reducing how often they stutter or how much effort it takes to speak, increasing how easily they are understood by others or how positive they feel about speaking. Therapy will usually involve regular speech pathology sessions with home practice to complete between clinic visits.
How long therapy will take is different for everyone, and depends on the challenges they are experiencing and their goals.
We usually book therapy sessions in 6-8 week blocks. Most therapy will require at least 2-3 of these blocks to be completed. Some clients will require more, some less.
There are various programs to help with specific communication concerns at different ages. Our team can provide the following stuttering treatments:
- The Lidcombe Program
- RESTART-DCM
- Palin Parent-Child Interaction Therapy
- Westmead Program
- The Camperdown Program
- Stutter Modification therapy
- Smooth Speech
- Avoidance Reduction Treatment for Stuttering (ARTS(R))
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
- Solution-focused Brief Therapy
Your therapist will make suggestions regarding which options may suit you, and together you will decide on an approach that fits you best.
Our Speech Pathology services are charged per hour. We currently accept:
- Private fee paying clients
- Enhanced Primary Care/Chronic Disease Management plans from a General Practitioner (gap charged)
- NDIS plan and self managed participants
- Department of Veteran Affairs clients
Speech Pathology is funded through the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). As per the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits guide, Speech Pathology utilises the following NDIS funding line:
- Capacity Building – Improved Daily Living
Contact us
To find out more about how we can assist, we invite you to get in touch.
For more information or to enquire about accessing this service please email hello@elcies.org.au