ABSTRACT
This chapter describes clinical intervention procedures for the moderate-to-severe younger stuttering child, where he is becoming aware of a speech problem or fearing certain speech situations. The disfluent child with a more severe problem needs to be given time to organise and assimilate his thoughts, language and speech mechanisms. Transfer and maintenance of fluency are managed on an individual basis, with a periodic re-assessment of the group as a whole. This approach to the treatment of the disfluent child is currently being evaluated on both a short- and long-term basis. The chapter outlines the assessment and interview procedures developed by L. Rustin on which we base management and treatment decisions. It integrates the parental interview with the child assessment. Two rooms are required, one for the parental interview and one for the assessment of the child. The aim of the parental interview is to evaluate the family systems and structure.
