Lidcombe News Edition 31st - Montreal Fluency

A brief history of the Lidcombe Program
Clinician Training in North America:
Looking Back at 10 Years
Rosalee C. Shenker
I first heard Mark Onslow speak about the Lidcombe Program at an ASHA
Special Interest Division 4 meeting in Monterey, California, in 1997. Although
I had read a bit about the Lidcombe Program I was unprepared for the effect
that this presentation had on me. All of the components of the treatment and
rationale for the approach suddenly made perfect sense and I remember
thinking, “Why haven’t I thought of that!” After pursuing Mark as an email
‘pen pal’ for several months, we arranged that he and Ann Packman would
visit Montreal in November 1997. Their plane landed on the first snowy day of
the season and although it looked beautiful from inside the airport, it was not
so easily navigable for a couple from ‘Oz’ who had not had the experience of
walking in ‘slush’ without proper footwear. “Oh, oh”, I thought, “…bad start!”
However, from the first meeting, I was committed to the concept of the
Lidcombe program, and determined to try it out in Canada. The support and
mentoring that I and my colleagues have received from all the members of the
ASRC over the years has been exceptional. After several months of clinical
practice, and after convincing several staff clinicians and graduate students to
try out this ‘new approach’, Mark returned again in November 1998 to follow
up on our progress. We presented several cases with great trepidation, and
found Mark to be an excellent clinical teacher, providing supportive and useful
feedback that further encouraged us to shape our clinical skills in those early
days. Our initial fears of presenting in front of the ‘developer of the LP’ were
totally unfounded, we breathed a collective sigh of relief and became even
more determined to help other Speech Language Pathologists, (SLP) to learn
to use this effective program. At that meeting I agreed to initiate clinical
training in the Lidcombe Program in Canada.
The first Lidcombe Program Clinical Training workshop in Canada took place
in March 1999 when Elisabeth Harrison travelled to Montreal to train 30 SLPs.
Two of those clinicians were Melissa Bruce and Julie Reville, clinical
coordinators for student training at the University of Vermont. At the time of
initial training, North American clinicians were more familiar, and therefore
more comfortable, with more indirect models of early intervention. Although
many North American clinicians quickly embraced the Lidcombe Program, it
was still difficult for some to embrace a model that provided direct verbal
feedback for stuttering to the child. I shall ever be indebted to Barry Guitar
for his openness and willingness to try out this program. After seeing the
progress made by Melissa and Julie with the Lidcombe Program, Barry
registered for the first Lidcombe Program workshop given by myself and
JoAnne Wilding. Imagine our excitement…and anxiety… to have Barry as
one of our students. We need not have been concerned; he was a perfect
gentleman and enhanced the workshop through sharing his clinical expertise
and experience which included stories of his time spent in Australia working
with Dr. Gavin Andrews. By 2002 over 250 clinicians had been trained, mostly
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