Case Studies
Fluency Development Commentary & Case Studies From
Rebecca Snyder, M.A., CCC-SLP
Snyder Speech Services
Omaha, NE
Fluency Development Case Study 1
Situation
The client is a 14 year old, eighth grade male who would be considered to be a moderate stutter. The client’s father indicates that he was also a stutter and, at this point, is able to control his fluency by word circumlocution. This 14 year old has received traditional speech therapy from preschool into eighth grade and is currently receiving services. He states that he avoids talking in class, avoids phone calls, making class presentations and ordering food in restaurants. It is felt that his reluctance to participate in classroom activities and presentations is affecting his academic performance.
The family was referred for a SpeechEasy device evaluation by the public school speech pathologist and by their neighbor who is also a speech pathologist. The client was considered to be a very good SpeechEasy candidate secondary to his age, the length of his previous traditional therapy experience and his desire to perform better in school.
Results
Client experienced the following results with the SpeechEasy device:
Stuttered Syllables
- Conversation
Without SpeechEasy, 26 percent; with SpeechEasy, 8 percent - Reading
Without SpeechEasy, 18 percent; with SpeechEasy, 1.57 percent
As can be seen from the initial results, the client had a greater improvement in his fluency in the reading situation than he did in general conversation. It should be noted, however, that the type of dysfluency changed with the use of the SpeechEasy so that those dysfluencies were most consistently very slight initial sound prolongations with the elimination of most initial sound and word repetitions, interjections and hesitations. It was discussed with the family that it would be appropriate and advisable that the client would benefit from continued work with his school speech pathologist with the use of the SpeechEasy device. This could be coordinated between this examining speech pathologist and the public school speech pathologist.
