Fluency Therapy Ideas

The following Fluency Therapy Ideas were posted to the mailing list GRNDRNDS in October 1998. Since it is a public mailing list, and does maintain an archive, the ideas posted are not "copyrighted" and are available to the public. To make it easier, I have extracted the ideas listed by these clinicians. Perhaps they can adapted by clinicians and student clinicians working with children with articulation disorders and looking for therapy ideas. This page is also translated with permission into French, Ukrainian, Indonesian, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Belarusian, Polish, Norwegian, Punjabi, Russian and Turkish

From Jackie K.

Here's what I do for fluency kids. After we've discussed fluency (and yes, I use the word stuttering if the student does), relaxing the "speech helpers" (lips, vocal folds, etc.), "stretched speech, and the idea that dysfluency "comes and goes" (you'll be more fluent at different times); we make a "fluency meter". It's a meter that the student can color in each step from bottom to top. It's a good way to quickly review and let the student decide on a given day where he wants to start:

  • I can stretch my speech shadowing words
  • I can stretch my speech naming pictures
  • I can stretch my speech reciting simple rhymes
  • I can stretch my speech shadowing short phrases
  • I can stretch my speech making up short phrases
  • etc, etc, you can add as many steps as a students needs.

I usually go from phrases; to sentences, to using two pictures to make up a sentence; to using sequence pictures to tell a story; to answering simple questions; to answering complex questions; to carrying on conversations in different environments, to talking in stressful settings.

I suppose the nice thing about a "meter" is that it allows the student to see his progress and encourages small steps.

From Judy

There are several therapy ideas for fluency on the Stuttering Home Page.

Posted to Stutt-l by Heather Grossman on December 16, 1999 -- Today I was lucky enough to supervise a great session lead by a quite talented student clinician in our center. I always assert that my best "tips" as a therapist have all come from clients, and I did learn one or two today.. Danielle works with a 23 year-male who stutters and recently began working with a 6 year-old who presents with severe struggle behaviors, situational avoidances and had already been using a variety of starters and word substitutions. This little guy had never met a person who stuttered and didn't believe us when we told him there were a whole bunch! We gave him a FRIENDS poster of famous PWS and his mother told us later that he told her it was not real.. and that I had been joking. Anyway, the student had these two clients meet together for a therapy session after their individual sessions, and it was the best! The clinician had prepared a list of questions with the younger client in his session so she was able to just sort of coach it without controlling. Some highlights were discussions about "not letting it upset you when your family doesn't understand your stuttering because they don't do it," and the older "cool" guy telling the child that "when you start to get good at other things, you get confidence, and you don't worry so much about stuttering because it's just a thing you DO and not who you are." He also confirmed for the child how absolutely hard it is to "slow down" but that it really helps him when he "stops, and tries to listen to himself speak like he was listening to another person." (His therapy tip!) He also told the child that "you don't get as frustrated when you stutter once you know you can speak and stutter in different ways." They discussed how hard it is to "tell someone you stutter when they ask why you are talking that way" but that "it helps you feel so much better when you do." They talked about how they agreed "therapy is only good if you can talk about your feelings." They spoke rather independently of the clinician for about 30 minutes, shook hands and thanked each other.. This was a great start toward empowering this child. The two of them got more out of that half hour of therapy with each other than I ever could have imagined. What a good day..

Posted by Debra Blanton to Stutt-L on June 4, 2002 -- I once had an 11 year-old boy come to me VERY UPSET because "everyone" was making fun of his stuttering and calling him stupid AND his reading teacher would not let him finish reading out loud. I made him write on the board what he was, but could not include stutterer. After he had written 21 things (i.e, son, boy, 'A' student, computer wiz, baseball player, nephew, etc) and that was all he could come up with, I then allowed him to write, "I stutter." He stepped back and said, "WOW, stuttering is only 1/22nd of me. It IS only part of who I am." Yes it draws attention to you, but then you get a chance to prove how great you are in other areas as well.

The following therapy ideas were gleaned from STAFF, a newsletter from Aaron's Associates, and added with permission of Janice Westbrook, editor

Handling Criticism: Let's Role Play (Staff, April 1992)

By Carolyn Kolpin
Stuttering Specialist
El Paso Independent School District

Many times as a Person Who Stutters (P. W.S.) is growing up they encounter insensitiveness in others toward stuttering. This exercise is meant as a way of handling teasing. Sometimes if we have a plan of action when a situation arises, that will ease the pain we feel. This is a very important issue - one of the biggest. It deserves role play time at home as well as in therapy.

It is important to realize that only your thoughts can upset you, but if you can learn to think more rationally, your self esteem won't be at the mercy of others. You know..."Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." We need to help the children develop a different cognitive set.

Here we go! (I always switch steps one and two.)

Step 1: Empathy. When someone is criticizing you or attacking you, his motives may be to help you or to hurt you. Start asking questions. Ask for more and more specific information. One might ask these questions, "What about stuttering bothers you?" or "It bothers you that I am different?", "What about that bothers you?" The critic may give up at this point.

Step 2: Disarming the critic. If someone is shooting at you, you have three choices. You can shoot back - this leads to warfare; you can run away - this leads to humiliation; or you can stay put and disarm your opponent - this leads to high self-esteem. This is done by finding some point on which to agree with the opponent. In this case, a forthright, "I stutter", or "You're right, I stutter" is wonderful. Critics will usually give up here.

Step 3: Feedback and negotiation. Here you explain your position and emotions tactfully and assertively and negotiate any real differences. "I understand, you would be more comfortable with me if I didn't stutter. I'm working on it. I won't always stutter, I am in therapy." You may have to repeat this last step if the critic won't give it up.

You will need to make up your own situation, but a scenario might go like this:

      Critic: "Why do you talk like th-tha-that?"
      P.W.S.: "I stutter, what about that bothers you?"
      Critic: "No one else talks like that. It's weird."
      P.W.S.: "What about stuttering bothers you?"
      Critic: "I don't know. Why can't you talk right?"
      P.W.S.: "I stutter. You're right."
      Critic: "Yeah."
        P.W.S.: "I understand that you would be more comfortable with me if I didn't stutter. I won't always stutter. I'm working on it."

Jacob's Secret Speech Bracelet (Staff, October 1994)
by Jacob G.

Do you have trouble remembering all the things your Speech Teacher tells you to do?

      You can make a cool bracelet out of yam, or strips of suede. You can put different colored beads on it, and you can let each color stand for something you're supposed to remember. For instance, you might have a brown bead that reminds you of a football, and helps you remember that when you're talking about sports, you're going to use slow, deliberate speech.

Or you might have a red bead that reminds you of your teacher, who wears a lot of red. When you see it you could remember that your Speech Teacher is going to ask you if you're answering questions in class.

Or you might have a blue bead that reminds you of a warm, relaxing bath. When you touch it you can do all the things your Speech Teacher told you to do to relax. You might even put on a bead that is a color you don't like. It could remind you of the people who tease you sometime. When you look at it you could remember all the cold things your Speech Teacher told you to say back to them.

But what is really fun is making up your own bracelet - thinking of your own colors and what they mean to you. You don't even have to tell anyone else what they mean - not even your Speech Teacher. It can be a secret that only you know - some really neat thing you have found helps your speech!

Neat Idea for Fluency Class Project (Staff, October 1991)

Amy Johnson of Gates Mills, Ohio, sent us a copy of an article in the August, 1991 'TEEN Magazine. The article, entitled "Stars Are People Too" points out that even famous stars have problems feeling good about themselves all the time. They give examples of stars who are "shy", "chubby", "a tomboy" etc. They offer the following information about Bruce Willis:

And then there's super-confident Bruce Willis. Mr. Die Hard was once Mr. Stutterer. Yep, he was an awkward teenager who stuttered. But through his acting, he outgrew it. A pal of Bruce's once spoke out about his buddy: "It was like the ugly duckling. Bruce transformed into this handsome, well-built, quick-witted person almost miraculously,he recalls.

The thing that concerns Amy is the fact that these writers have left the impression that people who stutter are "awkward", lack confidence, and are the opposite of "handsome, well-built, and quick-witted." We feel sure they did not intend to imply this, but stereotypes are dangerous mainly because they lead people to believe something without thinking about it.

So, Amy would like to suggest the following activities for a Fluency Class: 1) Think of ways that we can show people that we don't buy this stereotype about people who stutter!! 2) Write a letter to the editors of 'TEEN Magazine, and give them some straight information about stuttering. Their address is: 'TEEN Magazine, PO Box 3341, Hollywood, CA 90028.

Taking Turns (from Staff, March 1995)
by Judith V. Butler, M.A., CCC-SP

Reprinted from the free newsletter to parents of children who stutter, which Ms. Butler provides in Pittsburgh. PA area

The goal of speech therapy is change. Parents often begin therapy under the assumption that the Speech Pathologist can do something to change the way a child talks. Alas, they discover the Speech Pathologist is merely a guide.

One critical change that promotes fluency is waiting; specifically, waiting for a speaker to finish talking before chiming in. It seems to be accepted practice for "normal speakers" of any age to interrupt one another in conversation. My impression is that rapid responses and interruptions can reflect enthusiasm and engagement between adults. For children, interruptions seem to establish dominance and are useful in intense competition for adult attention.

"The Effects of Structured Turn-Taking on Disfluencies: A Case Study" was recently published in the October 1994 issue of Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools. In this paper, the authors describe how one set of parents changed the way their family conversations took place around the dinner table. Each child raised a block in the air when he wanted a turn to talk. The parents praised each child for waiting ("Good job waiting"), and discouraged interruptions (No, it's not your turn"). Using this method, stuttering-type disfluencies decreased.

"The use of turn-taking may have resulted in a reduction in the threat of interruption, or an increase in assurance that others were listening to the content of the subject's speech... Although the conditions that promote fluency may be highly individualistic, the results of this study would tend to support the advice given to parents to reduce communication stress on their child."

Structuring dinner time conversation is a change that parents can make to help their child speak more easily. Because it is a change, it will feel different and take practice. "Put the emphasis on everyone having an opportunity to talk rather than on one child's speech difficulty" and everyone at the table will benefit.

Lea Schauberger, April 12, 2003 - Activity for Dealing With Teasing

    A whole group classroom activity that I use to help children deal with teasing involves a large paper heart, a shoe box and small pieces of paper. I have the kids talk about what kinds of words and statements make them feel bad. After they share one, I have them write it down on a piece of paper, put it in the shoe box and crumple a portion of the large paper heart. After all the students have had an opportunity to share, I have them think of words and statements that make people feel good about themselves. After they share their thought, they go to the large heart and straighten out a portion of it. After everyone has had an opportunity to share and straighten the heart, I have him or her look at the heart and tell me what he or she things it looks like. Most students will respond by saying it is not crumpled anymore but it is not smooth. I explain to the student that words hurt and they make a lasting impression on people. The goal of this activity is to have the students really think about the words they choose to say to people. I have found this activity to be very useful in getting the students to really think about their words.

Last modified June 10, 2018

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