Project report - click here.
If as a result of the project or summary report there has been a change in your dysfluency pre-school service, or the way the service is monitored, please let us know.

Stammering in early childhood can be alleviated and referral to speech and language therapy at the point of concern is recommended. Unfortunately many general practice doctors and health visitors in the UK continue to tell parents with a dysfluent child "not to worry", "ignore the stammer", "leave it for a while and see if it disappears". This means that many dysfluent children are left to become chronic stammerers in their adult lives.

This Project, conducted by Elaine Christie, aimed to persuade GP's and health visitors throughout the UK to identify and refer pre-school children at risk of early stammering, and undertook important research into referral rates. The project was completed in 1999, but the BSA's subsequent Parental awareness campaign and current Pre-school dysfluency project grew out of the project.

The project demonstrates in its results how successful it has been in acheiving its main goals:
to change stammering referral patterns, increasing the number of pre-school referrals
to ensure children are identified and referred soon after stammering onset, during their pre-school years.

The size of the project was significant as the results are now based on referral data from over 2,500 dysfluent children from 32 NHS Trusts accross the UK. Previously, knowledge of dysfluency referral rates had been based on the findings of a study conducted in 1964, whilst knowledge of reported stammering onset and referral age had been based on a 1992 study based on data from 87 children.

The project's achievements are numerous but include the development of new leaflets for parents of children under five and for health professionals. The parents leaflet has been translated into Welsh. Five audio tape transations of the parents leaflet have been completed and are available in Bengali, Gujurati, Punjabi, Somali and Urdu (£1.50 per tape or £5 for any combination of four). Over 50,000 leaflets for professionals and 100,000 for parents have now been printed and distributed.

Also, over 200 speech and language therapists accross the country attended 3 day training courses in assessment and treatment of young dysfluent children.

Results

The results of this five year project showed how referral rates have climbed remarkably since it started in 1995. The number of dysfluent pre-school children referrals rose by 59.97% overall, with school-age referrals up by 24.13%. This, we believe, proves an overwhelming success for the awareness campaign.

We also found that by the end of the project pre-school and school-age children who stammer were being referred sooner after onset, suggesting that our work has convinced a great many more GP's and Health Visitors to refer more promptly.

A report which contains the full results and both policy and practical recommendations arising from the project findings has been produced and presented to the Department of Health. A summary report has also been published and is available to be downloaded from this website.

It is hoped that the project findings presented in the reports will have a positive impact in:
persuading health visitors, GP's and other key referrers of the long term benefits of early identification, referral and intervention, and
challenging the prevailing "wait and see" attitude which many health professionals hold toward the early referral of dysfluent pre-school children.

*Referrals may be made through a Health Visitor, GP or by direct contact with the local Speech & Language Therapy department.