EFFECTIVE STUTTERING TREATMENT FOR PERSONS WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS: A SINGLE-SUBJECT DESIGN STUDY
Open AccessThis study investigated the efficacy of treating stuttering in an adult with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) who stutters. Past studies have reported a high prevalence of fluency disorders in persons on the autism spectrum. Even though a large percentage of persons with ASD stutter, there have been no published studies examining stuttering treatment efficacy in this population. There is a need in the field of speech language pathology for evidence based stuttering treatment programs for persons with ASDs. This study was a single-subject design with an adult male diagnosed with an ASD and severe stuttering who had been undergoing social-pragmatic language therapy for several years. Baseline data collection was completed for the affective, behavioral, and cognitive components of stuttering. Once stable baselines were established, a rule-based fluency treatment program that targeted the behavioral component of stuttering was implemented. Treatment progressed from the word-level to the sentence-level to conversational speech. Conversational speech samples were collected and analyzed for percent stuttered words (%SW) in and outside the clinic with the clinician, unfamiliar listeners, parents, and friends. Throughout stuttering treatment, the participant reduced his %SW significantly and was able to maintain a high level of fluency during the withdrawal and second treatment phases. As expected, affective and cognitive measures of stuttering remained relatively unchanged throughout treatment. These results suggest that a rule-based fluency program holds promise at reducing %SW in persons with ASD who stutter. Future directions include replicating our findings with additional participants and identifying participant variables critical to treatment success.
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