Category Archives: Working Families

If the parents/carers of a child work every day and the contact with their child is limited during the week how does this impact the delivery of the Lidcombe Program? Is it possible to measure the child’s stuttering in a representative manner when they are only with their parent for short periods in the evenings? Will the treatment work if evenings are the only possible opportunity to deliver treatment during the working week? At the end of Stage 1 how can unstructured treatment be delivered in sufficient quantities to make treatment gains? Do long parental working hours contraindicate the Lidcombe Program?

The viability of treatment for any child will depend on whether enough effective treatment can happen to make satisfactory progress. Working parents with long hours away from their child do offer some challenges.

One of those challenges is measurement. Parents can only rate speech that they have heard. While options such as asking for input from child care teachers or school teachers may be helpful in some specific situations, severity ratings rely purely on direct observation of the child. The parent may be able to have a short conversation with their child early in the morning to obtain two rating opportunities during workdays. Careful observation on weekends may confirm the child’s progress during the week.

Questioning whether treatment in the evenings only will be sufficient for the child can only be determined by progress. The parent must provide greater variety of treatment times on the weekends. If some days have been missed during the week due to tiredness or lack of opportunity, some additional treatment times on the weekends may help to compensate. Once the child has reached a point in the program buy inderal (generic name propranolol) where unstructured treatment conversations are required more than structured treatment conversations, the parent may find it easier to take advantage of short periods of time and therefore utilise perhaps some of their morning time as well as evenings and weekends for treatment conversations. Progress measured by severity ratings will establish whether the parent is able to provide enough effective treatment.

Determining whether the Lidcombe Program is viable for a family depends on many variables. Some parents may find a way to make treatment work and progress happen. Other families may find their circumstances too inflexible to meet the demands of the program. Parents are often keen to organise their circumstances to achieve the best results possible for their child. Predetermining which families will be able to successfully treat a child with the Lidcombe Program is questionable as parents may be able to creatively problem solve a way through issues such as limited time.