Evolución percibida por los padres de preescolares que tartamudean que recibieron tratamiento preventivo

Aim

The aim of this article is (a) to describe the progress perceived by parents of children between the ages of 2.11 and 5.11 who stuttered, after receiving preventive treatment for stuttering with parental support; (b) to assess the communicative resources learned by the children and their parents regarding stuttering and (c) to find out their level of satisfaction with treatment. The study was carried out at ILD, a specialized centre for fluency disorders.

Methods

A questionnaire was administered to 18 parents, whose children had been discharged after therapy. Of the sample, 77.8% (n = 14) were boys and 22.2% (n = 4) girls. The selected children participating in the study were aged between 4 and 8 years (M = 5.90, SD = 1.25).

Results

From the responses it was noted that: (I) 88.9% of the children maintained fluent speech; (II) and 72.2% did not present or have blocks, 82.3% did not experience throat tension; (III) the children continued to present disfluencies when they were tired (n = 6) or stressed (n = 5); (IV) the children improved in speaking, behavior and had adopted good strategies in dealing with disfluencies or blocks; (V) both children and parents frequently used the resources learned during treatment; (VI) individual parent and follow-up sessions were conducted and most of them received guidelines to follow in case of relapses; and (VII) 94.4% of parents were satisfied with treatment outcomes.

Conclusion

Results indicate that the treatment conducted with the preschool children, with support from their parents, contributed to improvements in speech fluency, behavior, positive conversational attitudes, and parent–child communication skills.