Lidcombe Program Webcam Treatment for Early Stuttering: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Purpose: Webcam treatment is potentially useful for health care in cases of early stuttering in which clients are isolated from specialized treatment services for geographic and other reasons. The purpose of the present trial was to compare outcomes of clinic and webcam deliveries of the Lidcombe Program treatment (Packman et al., 2015) for early stuttering.

Method: The design was a parallel, open plan, noninferiority randomized controlled trial of the standard Lidcombe Program treatment and the experimental webcam Lidcombe Program treatment. Participants were 49 children aged 3 years 0 months to 5 years 11 months at the start of treatment. Primary outcomes were the percentage of syllables stuttered at 9 months postrandomization and the number of consultations to complete Stage 1 of the Lidcombe Program.

Results: There was insufficient evidence of a posttreatment difference of the percentage of syllables stuttered between the standard and webcam Lidcombe Program treatments. There was insufficient evidence of a difference between the groups for typical stuttering severity measured by parents or the reported clinical relationship with the treating speech-language pathologist.

Conclusions: This trial confirmed the viability of the webcam Lidcombe Program intervention. It appears to be as efficacious and economically viable as the standard, clinic Lidcombe Program treatment.