Easy Does It provides the speech-language clinician with guidelines and materials for planning therapy for the two year old to six year old child with a stuttering disorder. Question and answer sections and home activities are also provided. This program is not to be used as a rigid step-by-step program, but rather as a base from which individualized systematic therapy can be formulated. The therapy described here is based on the principle that much learning takes place through modeling. Therefore, the clinician does not need to identify stuttering or teach direct speech modification techniques. Rather, the clinician can model easy, fluent speech and encourage the child to talk in the same way.
Description of the Goals. Objectives. and Activities
Phase 1: Experiencing Fluency The goal of this phase is to expose the child to slow, easy speech and have him experience fluency during structured activities done in unison with the clinician.
Phase 2: Establishing Fluency The goal of this phase is to establish slow, easy speech in structured activities.
Phase 3: Desensitizing to Fluency Disrupters The goal of this phase is to teach the child to maintain slow, easy speech while coping with pressure likely to cause a disintegration in fluency.
Phase 4: Transferring Fluency The goal of this phase is to teach the child to transfer slow, easy speech from structured tasks to real-life speaking situations.
Phase 5: Maintaining Fluency The goal of this phase is to systematically decrease the frequency of direct therapy contacts.
