Australian therapists Wednesday said they had cured young child stutterers in just 10 hours of intensive treatment with parental backup.
A team from the University of Sydney showed how successful they had been with a two-pronged method employed on 55 children under 5.First, parents praised their children for correct speech and asked for immediate correction and repeats when they stuttered with what were called "bumpy words."
Then therapists, who had studied covertly recorded tapes of the stuttering children at home, were called in for "problem-solving" follow-up with the parents.
The researchers, whose findings were presented to a British Psychological Society conference, said clinical treatment time averaged 10.5 hours "which is around one tenth of the time required for adults."
"Also adults are prone to post-treatment relapse in the years after treatment, but no such occurrence was found in the present group," they added.