Fiona Curtis Speech Pathology Services

05/02/2025

We are thrilled to share an exciting research opportunity for adolescents who stutter.

We are seeking adolescents between 11-17 years to trial a FREE, online social anxiety treatment program known as iBroadway. iBroadway is based on well-established cognitive behaviour therapy procedures and aims to help young individuals to build confidence and overcome the challenges of social anxiety associated with stuttering.

For more info: https://www.uts.edu.au/research/australian-stuttering-research-centre/our-research/participate-research

03/12/2024

Not long now till Santa hops over to our special Christmas Zoom. Meet new people, catch up with some old friends, and listen to some great guest speakers, plus plenty of fun in the breakout rooms. All welcome. Wednesday 11 December 2024 7.00pm- 8.30pm Brisbane Time. Meeting ID 823 8140 1996, Passcode 490768

21/10/2024

It’s International Stuttering Awareness Day this week.
There is another great theme this year. Everyone has a superpower and people who stutter teach us to listen better. 

21/06/2024

Yay! This is great to see and long awaited. Looking forward to more training updates later this year.

12/06/2024

Smooth talking Practice Idea
In every session, the parent and child show the clinician a sample of home practice. I always ask the parent to bring a task from home which the parent thought worked best. Recently, a mum and her son showed me their smooth talking practice using the Woolworths Farm Bricks. They took turns at choosing an item and then saying where it went. These sentences were simple and predictable so there was little formulation required and it was easy for the child to be smooth. Mum was then able to "loosen up" the language of the task by saying more varied things and "taking the chat out of the task" by asking questions and reflecting on past related experiences. This ultimately helps with the carryover of smooth talking into everyday life. The language demands of the task need to be flexible to keep the child in a smooth zone and to keep pushing the boundaries. Enjoy!

27/05/2024

Georgie and Elaina are presenting this work on Tuesday at the SPA conference. Looking forward to hearing more about the study.

One third of the children responded to the Lidcombe Program perfectly, just as if they were pre-schoolers. And one-third showed clinically signficant improvement with their stuttering. And even better, the Lidcombe Program produced some psychological benefits for school-age children.

Read here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094730X24000214?via%3Dihub

Johnson, G., Onslow, M., Carey, B., Jones, M., & Kefalianos, E. (2024). Lidcombe Program telehealth treatment for children 6-12 years of age: A Phase II trial. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 80, Article 106057

02/04/2024

Good to know…

Did you know that boys have stuttering onset 5.5 months later than girls, and 9 months later when there is no family history!
This is useful when monitoring an at-risk infant for stuttering onset.

To read more: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35998418/

Darmody, T., O'Brian, S., Rogers, K., Onslow, M., Jacobs, C., McEwen, A., Lowe, R., Packman, A., & Menzies, R. (2022). Stuttering, family history and counselling: A contemporary database. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 73, Article 105925.

12/02/2024

School has started back and we have a great resource, written for school age kids.

We encourage speech pathologists, teachers and parents to take a look and read with your child.

Available as a flipbook on our website. View via desktop, laptop, ipad or phone: https://www.uts.edu.au/research/australian-stuttering-research-centre/resources/missy-stories

All three stories written by our own Ann Packman.