Smooth Speech Research

Of all the treatment options available for adults and teenagers, Smooth Speech (Prolonged-Speech, Speech Restructuring) has the best research to support it9. Smooth Speech is designed for adults so most of the research has been with adults, but research with teenagers has produced very good results. More research with teenagers is underway.

Intensive Smooth Speech

Intensive Smooth Speech programs have the best supporting research of all the treatments for adolescents9. Intensive treatments can result in fast changes29. Several research studies have shown that intensive Smooth Speech programs are effective. Here are the results for three of these studies:

• A 70% decrease in stuttering was the average result found in a recent study which followed 78 adults for 3.5 to 5 years after their intensive Smooth Speech treatment10.
• Zero or near zero stuttering was the result achieved and maintained by all participants in a study which followed 12 adults (average age 21 years) for 2 years after their intensive Smooth Speech program26.
• 90% of participants experienced dramatic improvement during their intensive Smooth Speech treatment in a study of 42 participants (including 25 adolescents. Follow-up testing 12 to 24 months after treatment showed that 69% of participants had maintained satisfactory fluency levels and 7% had maintained minimal fluency14.

The Camperdown Program Research

The Camperdown Program authors carried out a research study with 30 adults. Fourteen participants dropped out before the 12-month follow-up, but the authors list the reasons people gave for dropping out. The 16 full participants spoke with 'minimal' stuttering rates up to 12 months after the final treatment phase. Self-reports from all 16 participants confirmed the treatment benefits, but also raised other important issues25.

EMG Biofeedback Research

One study of EMG biofeedback with 10-14 year olds found it produced similar results to standard Smooth Speech treatments16. However, another study found results were not as good as Smooth Speech. The conclusion was that EMG biofeedback is not proven as a main treatment method but may be useful as an additional treatment together with a proven program like Smooth Speech11.

Counselling Research

Counselling may help by lowering your anxiety or helping you to concentrate on your speech. However, counselling alone is not enough to reduce stuttering. Various counselling methods have not produced clinically significant results with stuttering13. Almost any new technique may reduce stuttering in the short term, often through the power of novelty and suggestion, but will not bring long-term gain in natural sounding fluency13.