An Operant Response Shaping Program for the Establishment of Fluency in Stutterers. Final Report.

Reported was a 3 week fluency shaping program in which 56 stutterers (aged 8 to 59 years) were each assisted by a single speech therapist through the following program stages: very slow speech; vowels; consonant initiated syllables; one, two, and three syllable worts; short, self generated sentences; spontaneous speech; and transfer. Ss also worked with a computer system which monitored speech sound characteristics and provided feedback on the accuracy of responses. Each S was described in terms of sex, age, previous treatment indication, and stuttering frequency prior to program participation. Reported were significant preand post-treatment differences in Ss on measures of disfluent word frequencies. A newly derived objective index of stuttering severity. was said to correlate significantly with global ratings of severity made by a speech pathologist. Post-treatment measures on the Perceptions of Stuttering Inventory made on the average of 4 months after the program were found to be significantly lower than the pre-treatment measures. Followup data collected 2 years after the program showed that significant gains in speech fluency had been retained for seven out of 10 Ss. (Author/GW)