The fourth study
undertaken by the Dominic Barker Research Project at
It
seemed that children who engaged in imaginative play whilst talking to their
parents stammered more than children who were playing with simple rule based
games.
If
this was indeed the case the implications for working with children who stammer
and their families were significant.
It
brought into question the common advice given to a parent to spend a portion of
each day allowing the child to play with what ever they wanted to, whilst the
parent tried to modify their own speech to create an environment where the
child could be more fluent.
If
certain play activities engendered dysfluent speech then this would hardly be
an arena for a parent to encourage.
If
other activities were more fluency enhancing then this could be the basis for
potential new therapies.
As
the original evidence came from 5 case studies this did not provide enough
weight to carry this idea forward to any great extent.
Therefore
it was necessary to study the phenomena in more detail. To that end, Fiona
Hamilton and Rachel Pennick joined the team as researcher and admin support.
With
increased numbers it was possible to undertake a larger study in a shorter
period of time. With Fiona’s additional expertise as a qualified speech and
language therapist we were able to collect data from a total of fifteen
children who stammered under the age of five.
These
children were all referred from Suffolk East Primary Care Trusts and had all
been diagnosed as having dysfluent speech by their parents and their local
therapists.
An
experimental design was adopted which involved videoing the children twice over
a 2 week period.
In
one section of the video the children were playing with their parent in free
play and in another section the children were taking part in a rule based game
such as lotto or picture dominoes.
The
trust bought all the play materials for the children which were lent out to the
families to ensure familiarity with the materials. A standard set of
procedures, regarding how to play the rule based games, were issued to the
families prior to their involvement in the study. This was to ensure that the
families all played the games in the manner that they had been initially
intended.
During
the experiment no additional advice on how to play or further therapist
intervention occurred.
When
the experiment was over we collated all the materials and then began the
lengthy process of transcribing the many hours of video footage into text.
After this was completed the data were analysed.
What
we looked at was whether or not there was any difference in the amount of
stammering during the two different types of play. As we had initially
suspected we found that there was a difference, and that in the free play
situation with their parent the children stammered significantly more than when
they were engaged in rule based play.
We
were very pleased to have obtained this highly relevant piece of information
from our study. As therapists it can be used to inform how we work with young
children. It is important to have clear advice to be able to give parents and
this finding will certainly inform parents as well as professionals.
We
have submitted a research paper to the International Fluency Conference which
will be held in
We
intend to take the findings of this study further and apply them to the
development of a new therapy for young children who stammer. We hope this
therapy will be a practical, accessible, simple and effective way for parents
to manage stammering on a daily basis in the home environment without the need
for extensive training.
We
aim to develop a box of play materials that a parent can use to establish and
maintain fluency with young children. To find a fun, yet effective way of
dealing with childhood stammering is our ultimate goal.
If
we are able to establish a new effective therapy for young children who stammer
this will be a great achievement for the Trust and a fitting tribute to the
work that began at