Lidcombe News Edition 31st - Montreal Fluency

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the courses went down well with the majority (though not all and there are still many who remain sceptical) of the thirty or so clinicians, and soon a demand for more training was evident. Around this time the Lidcombe News was born (May 1998, see Lidcombe News edition 12 for a brief history) and it was Sue O’Brian who was our first agony aunt, though the ‘Dear Sue’ position in this newsletter has now for many years been taken over by the Bankstown Stuttering Unit with Lis Harrison, Vanessa Harris and now Margaret Webber heading up the team. As Sue could not keep coming over to the UK to deliver the workshops, this role was handed over to Rosemarie, Rebecca and myself. Initially the courses were spread over five or six days- this included a follow up day- and when they were given at the clinic bases of the three trainers they also included some ‘live’ observation of children being treated. During this time the popularity of the courses increased and soon the demands on our time, as well as the expense of the course to the health service, meant that we had to reduce the number of training days to three with one follow up day. The publication of the hardback book ‘the Clinician’s Guide’ in 2003, the formation of the Lidcombe Program Trainers Consortium, and the development of excellent videos and workbooks from Australia, have ensured a presentation which is the same worldwide. The quality of these resources, the local support networks and a greater acceptance that direct treatment can benefit young children who stutter, has led to our reducing the workshops to two days in English speaking countries and three days in countries where English is not the first language. Since those early workshops we have noticed a change in feeling about the LP. They are no longer the challenge, or as exhausting, as they once were! For the most part therapists have accepted that the LP is another way of treating early stuttering, and new graduates who have learned about it at university now view it as an appropriate intervention for children at risk of persistent stuttering. Most of the health Trusts in the UK have someone who has been Lidcombe trained and it is expected that clinical leads in stuttering in Speech and Language Therapy departments should have the Lidcombe training under their belts. Some may favour the indirect approach as their first choice, others may prefer the LP, but both are now seen as mainstream therapy in the UK, with the LP having the huge advantage of a strong evidence base which makes it easier to access funding for training. I am sometimes asked how many clinicians we have trained over the years in the UK and I’m afraid I don’t have any figures for this, but a guestimate would be around 2000. The story of the training in this country does not stop with the UK. We have been called upon to train therapists in other countries- most particularly in Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. The Netherlands has its own Consortium member- Durdana Putker (email:durdana.putker@planet.nl) and until recently so did Denmark. Lone Cordes Felby, unfortunately for us, moved on to a new job so this position is now open to a new member. This year we have had the privilege of travelling to Greece to train some twenty five therapists and in the autumn we have been invited to Spain to run a workshop there. Norway is currently advertising its own course which should take place in April 2009, and we have also had enquiries from Italy. 4
I mentioned earlier in this article that it was the research which had persuaded my health Trust to fund my trip to Australia. During the eleven years since we have implemented the LP in this country, Rosemarie and I who are now the two UK Trainers for the Consortium, have added to that evidence base. Initially I ran an audit in Norfolk, which is unpublished, but many of the results appear in the Bulletin of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (1999). It was important in that, as Mark Onslow informed me at the time, it was the first occasion that the Australian results had been replicated in a different country, and in a different culture. Rosemarie too ran an audit, which was national, and is summarised in Lidcombe News edition 15 (January 2003) and is available from the www.montrealfluency.com under the Lidcombe Newsletters section. We will have a look at some further research which has been conducted in this country, including Rosemarie’s Ph.D, and some other studies which are not based in Australia, in a later edition of the Lidcombe News. So we continue with the Lidcombe Training as it proliferates throughout the world, offering support where we can through Lidcombe Link days in the UK, the Lidcombe News, and problem solving by email with individual therapists who write to us. When I drove to Wolverhampton all those years ago I had little idea of how that day would change my clinical practice, or indeed my life, nor how it would help to spread the Lidcombe Program throughout the UK and Europe. Rosemarie and I, and other colleagues who help us co-present the training, Sally Wynne, Polly Mitchell, Corinne Moffatt and Samantha David, will, we hope, to continue to work and learn together, offering workshops where they are requested in the future. My grateful thanks to Rosemarie Hayhow for her help with this article References Hayhow, R. & Enderby, P. (2001) An audit of Speech and Language Therapists’ use of the Lidcombe Program. Unpublished manuscript, Speech and Language Therapy Research Unit, Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, UK Kingston, M. (1999, December). Is stuttering a motor speech problem? Bulletin of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, pp. 9-11 Kingston, M. (1997) The Lidcombe Programme comes to Britain. The British Stammering Association: Speaking Out, Autumn edition Onslow, M., Packman, A., & Harrison, E. (2003). The Lidcombe Program of Early Stuttering Intervention. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed. Onslow, M., O’Brian, S. & Harrison, E. (1997). The Lidcombe Program of Early Stuttering Intervention: Methods and Issues. European Journal of Disorders of Communication, 32, 231-250 Rustin, L. & Cook, F. (1997). Commentary on the Lidcombe Program of Early Stuttering Intervention. . European Journal of Disorders of Communication, 32, 250-258 5
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