Intensive speech-language pathology therapy with adults who stutter: preliminary study.

Only four male participants were studied, so the results cannot show what would happen in women or in a larger group. The therapy combined fluency promotion, awareness, desensitization, fluency modeling, stuttering modification, and communicative skills, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated. The study had no control group, so improvement could not be compared with no therapy, usual therapy, or time. Measurements were taken immediately before and after therapy, with no follow-up to test whether gains lasted or generalized to daily life. One participant's severe stuttering produced speech samples below the 200-syllable target used in the fluency protocol, which may affect comparisons. Correlations between fluency measures and self-perception were not statistically significant, and the authors note the small sample may have affected this. Participants had to be available for five hours per week and excluded recent stuttering treatment or other impairments, so it may not apply to people who cannot attend intensive therapy or have other conditions.

No funding or conflict-of-interest statement is reported.

Do not read the lower disfluency percentages as proof that intensive therapy works or that gains last. The study had four participants, no control group, and only immediate post-therapy measures.