Stuttering therapy can be hard! I went many years where I only had a student here and there with a fluency disorder. For a long time, I didn’t feel very confident in my skills and was unsure what to do. After guidance from a fellow SLP, attending stuttering conferences and diving into the research, my skill set and my confidence increased.
These effective and easy to implement therapy strategies, techniques, and resources are some of my go to’s. They will save you time and help your students increase their awareness and knowledge of stuttering.
Tips for Beginning Stuttering Therapy
Tip #1: Introduce Stuttering Enhancing Techniques.
- Work breath support and rate of speech using pacing activities.
- Teach and practice easy onset.
- Teach and practice light, articulatory contact.
You can find lots of ideas for working on stuttering online, or save time and look at this Ultimate Fluency Bundle that I put together for you.
Tip # 2: Incorporate Visual Supports.
Incorporate visual supports such as pacing boards. Personalize pacing boards with favorite movie or video game characters, seasonal themes, favorite colors, etc.
Use visual supports/picture supports to help identify bumpy vs. smooth speech, stuttering modification techniques (easy onset, light contact, etc.), rate of speech (too fast or just right), etc.
The resources in this Ultimate Fluency Bundle contain a variety of visual supports and make a great tool for your students.
Tip #2: Stuttering Education
Many kids are aware that their speech sounds “different” or that they sometimes have difficulty getting sounds or words out. There are likely mixed emotions around that. However, many kids have never heard the word “stuttering” before.
Here are some tips on where to begin:
- Empower kids. Start by talking about how the child feels, things that make him/her special, hopes and dreams, favorite memories, etc. You want kids to know that they can be anything they want to be no matter whether they stutter or not. (This is a great mixed group activity as well.)
- Work on disclosure statements. Practice those statements within the therapy setting. Then gradually increase the number of people and the settings your student shares his/her disclosure statement with.
- Educate kids by giving them a name to those “bumps”. Teach kids what stuttering is, causes of stuttering, facts/myths, and types of stuttering.
- Introduce speech makers and what they do. As kids become more aware of their stuttering, they can use speech makers to identify areas of tension.
- Discuss secondary characteristics.
- Talk about famous people who stutter. In my therapy sessions, we talk about how you can be anything you want to be from an MLB player (George Springer), to a famous actress (Emily Blunt), or even the president of the United States!
Make it fun! As your students become more knowledgeable about stuttering education and become more comfortable with talking about stuttering, take the information they’ve learned and put it into a journal, a Keynote or a PowerPoint presentation, or make a game about stuttering facts.
The bundle includes a comprehensive journal ready for your student to use and personalize.
You also get pre-made speech makers activities, true/false quizzes, and a matching types of disfluencies and stuttering modification techniques activity that students can play.
Tip #4: Use Audio and/or Video Recordings.
Use audio recordings to help kids identify stuttering moments. This is a great time to incorporate those visual supports. Students can point to a picture indicating whether the audio clip was “bumpy” or “smooth”.
Use the recordings to work on identifying the type of disfluency.
Video recordings are great for talking about secondary characteristics and practicing identifying those secondary characteristics.
Here are some videos I often to use:
Tip #5: Teach Others.
One of the biggest goals with stuttering therapy is to make kids feel empowered. We want them to actively and willing participate in class, develop and maintain friendships, and not feel like their fluency disorder is holding them back in any way. We want kids to have the knowledge and the courage to self-disclose that they are a stutterer and this is what stuttering is. Here are several ways to do that:
- Have your student choose one person that he/she feels comfortable with to share something from her/his journal.
- Let your student chose what he/she wants to share and who he/she wants to share with. This might be his/her teacher, parent, principal, librarian, etc.
- This could look like she/he reading from her/his journal, having the communication partner read a page from his/her journal, or making a video presentation to share.
- Gradually increase the number of people and the settings your student shares information with but, be sure to let her/him set the pace!
The resources in this Ultimate Fluency Bundle will help you create a great learning tool and visual supports for your students. You can easily add these fluency activities and visual supports to already established stuttering activities.
Looking for More Stuttering Resources?
Check out these therapy ideas.
- Stuttering Activities Boom Cards™
- Stuttering Activities & Visual Supports Boom Cards™
- Stuttering Google Slides™ Activity for Speech Therapy
- Spring Fluency Activities for Speech Therapy
Looking for Stuttering Research?
Click HERE for a link to stuttering resources including videos that I frequently use and refer to.
Save These Tips . . .
Just pin this to your favorite stuttering or speech Pinterest board so you can find these tips for working on stuttering when you need them. You’ll be glad you did.
