A new Voice Unearthed blog post, “Lidcombe was the only thing we could find,” the sixth in a series of interviews that shaped the narrative of my next book, VoiceS Unearthed: The Impact of Early Intervention on Those Who Continue to Stutter. (Names of interviewees have been changed for reasons of confidentiality.)

Marika, mom to 15-year-old Viliam

Although frustrated, Marika put her trust in the professionals. Then she read my first book, “Voice Unearthed: Hope, Help, and a Wake-Up Call for the Parents of Children Who Stutter.”

“Lidcombe was the only thing we could find. The speech therapist wasn’t a specialist but she was a speech therapist – it was a program she was aware of. I don’t think stammering was part of her specialist training. I do not know if she was formally trained in Lidcombe. Our son was really too old for Lidcombe. She didn’t know what else to do – so shove Lidcombe at him and see how it comes out.

We did Lidcombe for about six months. We coded on a scale from 1 to 10 where we thought his speech had been on that day. We looked through picture books and used the word “bumps” to describe his speech. That’s what got to him, reading the words out from a picture book. He is really intelligent so he’d say the word without a bump and then I’d go, ‘yay, that was really good, let’s try that again.’  He’d yell, ‘I can read! Why am I doing this, I can read!’ I was just doing what I was told. He was frustrated – he thought it was an insult to his intelligence. And then I’ve got my daughter in the other room going ‘I want special time! Why can’t I have special time?’

We paid an arm and a leg – 60 pounds a session – and the speech therapist was printing off sheets she found for free on the Internet. Thank God my mum gave me a big envelope full of cash to help pay for it.

Then we went with the National Health Service and that speech therapist was rubbish at talking to a nine-year old lad who really didn’t want to be there anyway. She tried to give him different tactics on how to start a sentence, like if you feel yourself going to bump in a letter, think about the word you want to say, stop, take a breath, do a tap, and then slide in. Jesus, he’s a nine-year old kid, he’s not going to do that, he’s just going to say it!

One technique he used was tapping. His speaking was very robotic, stilted. Then we kind of just stopped because they had given him the tools ‘so off you go.’ He’d have good days and bad days in his speech. We’d go back for regular updates but nothing had changed. It didn’t help, it didn’t do anything. Yes, I was using the verbal contingencies. I can’t believe that we did that. It was upsetting him but if this was going to fix it then ‘suck it up, get on with it.’ What are we going to do? They’re the professionals, they know what they’re doing.

It was only when I read your book and gained more confidence in myself and my son that I asked, ‘why are we doing this? What benefit are we getting from it?’ The light bulb went on and we moved on.

He was really lucky at school. There were only 180 kids in the whole school so his friends were the same ones he had joined with when he was four. The kids just got it. The only time he did have a couple of kids say stuff was when new kids joined the class when he was seven or eight. ‘Why do you talk that way?’ ‘Because I have a stammer.’ That was it. After that he actually typed out ‘things to help me when I speak’ and the teacher did a carpet talk about things to do and things not to do. 

One time I made an appointment to see a new teacher – just to let them know he has a stammer. The teacher said, ‘I know. He put his hand up and he couldn’t get it out and I finished the word for him. He promptly told me, ‘don’t ever finish my words for me again.’ She was a new teacher to the school and she and I got along well. She was blown away by his confidence. He didn’t come home and tell me this had happened. I had no idea that had happened until the teacher told me. You hope they were not rude, but on the other hand I thought, ‘go son!!’ She was the SENCO and turned out to be a good partner. 

Today, instead of focusing on his speech, he focuses on video games and football. He has thrived and flourished and nothing has come up about his speech at all.”