A telehealth intervention for early stuttering

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Effective communication is an essential of everyday life, and stuttering impairs this function. Stuttering has been shown to cause social maladjustment and to hinder attainment of occupational potential. There is an effective treatment available for preschool children who stutter, and this treatment can prevent the problems of stuttering later in life. The treatment depends on regular, weekly, face-to-face sessions with a speech pathologist. However, thirty percent of Australian children live rurally, and are receiving inadequate access to this important health service. This research is a randomised controlled trial of a telehealth intervention for early stuttering. The telehealth intervention is a new procedure where the speech pathologist uses the telephone and other communication methods to deliver the treatment to isolated families with a stuttering child.