Developing treatment for adolescents who stutter: a phase I trial of the Camperdown Program

To investigate in detail how adolescents who stutter perform during treatment, with the aim of informing treatment development for this age group.

The Camperdown Program was conducted with 3 adolescents who stutter. Their performance during treatment was recorded in detail, and outcome measures were collected before treatment and on 5 occasions after treatment.

One participant responded extremely well to treatment, with percentage of syllables stuttered (%SS) scores at 12 months follow-up around 1%. In addition, his speech naturalness was within normal limits. Another participant withdrew from treatment during maintenance, yet he still approximately halved his pretreatment %SS scores and was also sounding natural after treatment. This participant was satisfied with his treatment outcome. A third participant did not reach maintenance and did not benefit from the treatment.

The adolescent who succeeded in treatment presented with a high level of self-confidence and maturity. When examining the factors that seemed to impact on treatment outcome, an underlying theme of decreased parent influence and increased peer influence and self-direction was detected. These are fundamental during the journey through adolescence from childhood to adulthood. Future directions in developing treatments for adolescents are discussed.