Individual vs. Group Therapy for Stuttering

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My preference would be individual therapy so that you can account for the individual needs of the child. In group therapy, I think that is a little bit harder to do.  If you have a group of children who stutter, they're going to stutter in different ways.  But if you can do similar things with each child in a group, then that group therapy could work well.  For example, when you're talking about emotions, even a child in the group with a language disorder is going to feel a little anxious about how they talk or a little uncomfortable about the way they talk.  You could talk about emotions that way.  Going from working on correct sound production with one child to, “Now let's have Jimmy work on his easy onsets,” would work in a group setting.  But I think you have to be pretty creative in how you're going to incorporate one child’s treatment goals with others in the group to make the treatment work.  But again, my preference would be to work with the individual child and deal specifically with his/her fluency problem. 

E. Charles Healey is a professor of speech-language pathology at the University of Nebraska. Dr. Healey is currently an ASHA Board Recognized Specialist in Fluency Disorders and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Fluency Disorders. He has published many journal articles and book chapters concerning adults and children with fluency disorders.