Long-Term Outcome of the Lidcombe Program in Bilingual Children

Patricia M. Roberts and Rosalee Shenker

Studies on the Lidcombe Program (LP) present uniformly impressive results. Almost all children reach less than 1% syllables stuttered. However, we do not know whether children maintain these gains. This study compares the spontaneous speech of 20 children 2 to 7 years post- LP to the speech of age- and gender-matched, non-stuttering children. Dependent variables, measured in English and French, include: %SS, disfluencies per 100 syllables, MLU, and rate of speech. Most of the children have maintained the levels of fluency attained in the maintenance phase of the LP. Implications for therapy with preschool children and for bilingual stuttering children will be discussed.