A Preliminary Report on Outcomes of the American Institute for Stuttering Intensive Therapy Program

In this study, we documented the effects of a 3-week, intensive stuttering treatment program on overt and covert symptoms of stuttering and participants’ levels of social anxiety. This study was a preliminary report in which we used a single-group pretestposttest design to analyze outcomes data with reference to each participant individually and described general group trends. Researchers gave 5 adult participants who stuttered a battery of self-report instruments and collected speech samples before and after treatment. We found that disfluencies lessened considerably for all participants, although most continued to stutter at levels above those of normally fluent speakers. All participants except for 1 were far less negatively affected by stuttering after treatment and greatly reduced their reported levels of social anxiety. Several participants in this sample displayed pathological levels of social anxiety pretreatment. Preliminary data indicate that this intensive program generally achieved its stated goals of facilitating improved stuttering/speech management and psychological/attitudinal management. We need further investigations to document the durability of the gains reported herein, as well as the clinical implications of social anxiety as a comorbid condition in some persons who stutter. Clinicians typically deliver treatment for people who stutter (PWS) in one of two formats. In the longer term approach, clients receive therapy through weekly or semiweekly sessions, usually over the course of several months (Cook & Fry, 2006; Guitar, 2005; O’Brian, Onslow, Cream, & Packman, 2003; Yaruss, Pelczarski, & Quesal, 2010). In many ways, this is analogous to the delivery procedures of traditional outpatient mental health services, in which an individual is seen repeatedly over an extended period of time until the presenting concern is sufficiently ameliorated. Clinicians also may provide stuttering therapy in a concentrated, intensive format. An intensive program involves several hours of therapy per day over a relatively brief period of time, usually 2 to 3 weeks (Blomgren, Roy, Callister, & Merrill, 2005; Boberg & Kully, 1994; Howie, Tanner, & Andrews, 1981; Onslow, Costa, Andrews, Harrison, & Packman, 1996; Tsiamouris & Krieger, 2010; Webster, 1980). Some clinics focus primarily on the intensive phase of therapy and have minimal resources devoted to continuing care (Webster, 1980), others provide the initial intensive phase within a larger therapeutic framework that includes continued services at a lower frequency and intensity for many clients (Montgomery, 2006). To use another analogy, both of the intensive models for stuttering are similar to intensive outpatient addiction treatment programs for substance abuse, in which patients are temporarily sequestered in a healthcare facility in order to break maladaptive behavioral patterns/thought processes and begin a path toward durable recovery (McKay, 2009).