CALMS Method of Assessment/Treatment

By Mary George and Megan McHugh

Cognitive-(thinking)

Affective- (feeling)

Linguistic-(forming the message)

Motor- (producing speech)

Social-(normal communication)

Cognitive:

• Child’s knowledge, understanding and awareness of stuttering
• Thoughts of identity as a person who stutters and how others view them

Therapy Ideas:

1. Talk about talking
2. Increase Knowledge of stuttering
3. Understand Mechanisms of Speech
4. Increase Self-Monitoring
5. Change Negative Thinking
6. Develop Question of the Week
7. Journal

Affective:

• Feelings and emotions regarding stuttering
• Response to teasing, other people’s reactions, and avoidance of stuttering
• Self-image

Therapy Ideas:

1. Playing with Stuttering
2. Teach others how to stutter
3. Use objects to represent stuttering

Linguistic:

• Level of fluency and how it affects overall language ability, articulation and phonological ability

Therapy Ideas:

1. Select topic or theme
2. Systemically increase linguistic complexity
3. Use linguistic context to support speech modification skills
4. Integrate linguistic level with other CALMS components

Motor:

• SSI-3 integrated into this section: secondary behaviors, frequency and duration of disfluencies
• types and characteristics of disfluencies
• frequency of stuttering with different partners

Therapy Ideas:

1. Increase use of speech modification strategies

The 3 D’s ( Discuss, Demonstrate, Drill)

2. Create speech “tool box”
3. Contextualize, Conceptualize, Generalize
4. Have child rate performance

Social:

• avoidance of situations and degree of stuttering in certain situations
• impact on peer relationships

Therapy Ideas:

1. Don’t hide stuttering
2. Homework assignments (short, negotiate)
3. Role play in speaking situations
4. Take therapy on the road in different situations