JCPSLP
Volume 16, Number 1 2014
47
Stuttering researchers, however, have a long history of
examining whether student training clinics can provide
adequate or equivalent treatment to clinics which are
solely staffed by qualified clinicians. This paper reports the
equivalence of a student training clinic in delivering the
Camperdown Program for Adults who Stutter.
The Camperdown Program is a speech restructuring
treatment which has randomised control level evidence
of efficacy in studies conducted by qualified clinicians
(e.g., Carey, O’Brian, Onslow, Block, Jones & Packman,
2010). The program uses video examples of a new speech
pattern to model what patients are required to do. Four
training components are presented within the program:
“1) individual teaching sessions, 2) group practice day, 3)
individual problem solving sessions, and 4) maintenance”
(Carey et al., 2010, p. 109). The Camperdown Program has
been shown to be effective in both face-to-face modes and
when delivered by telephone (telehealth).
The findings show equivalence of outcomes to non-
student delivered therapy and therefore we can be
reasonably comfortable that this particular intervention
when delivered by students with appropriate supervision
is equally effective. It is interesting that many treatments
across the range of speech pathology relevant disorders
were developed with students providing the clinical
delivery (e.g., Ballard, Robin, McCabe & McDonald, 2010),
yet most treatment studies do not report this and fewer
evaluate the comparative efficacy. Unfortunately, the
design of this study does not allow a speechBITE rating of
research methodological rigour; however, Cocomazzo and
colleagues are to be congratulated for evaluating student
treatment outcomes.
References
Ballard, K. J., Robin, D. A. McCabe, P., & McDonald, J.
(2010). A novel treatment of prosody in children with CAS.
Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research
,
53
,
1227–1245.
Carey, B., O’Brian, S., Onslow, M., Block, S., Jones,
M., & Packman, A. (2010). Randomized controlled non-
inferiority trial of a telehealth treatment for chronic stuttering:
The Camperdown Program.
International Journal of
Language and Communication Disorders
,
45
(1), 108–120.
children used more utterances containing print/sound
references in the shared storybook reading and the post
story writing activity.
The methodological rigour of the paper was good,
with random allocation of teachers to groups, blinding of
assessors and appropriate statistical control and evaluation;
the level of detail and explanations found in the methods
sections allows for replication of this study. The paper
suggests that the use of
ABC and Beyond: The Hanen
Program for Building Emergent Literacy in Early Childhood
Settings
can be used with confidence to train professionals
to use effective strategies for promoting emergent literacy
development in young children. The program can be used
in clinical and educational settings by teachers and speech-
language pathologists because it does not require extensive
training.
More research is needed to assess whether 1) the
results were maintained long-term once the training was
completed and teachers had no contact with their trainers
regarding the implementation of the program and whether
2) changes in the children’s use of decontextualised
language were maintained long-term.
speechBITE rating: 5/10
Student implementation of the Camperdown
Program for adults who stutter
Cocomazzo, N., Block, S., Carey, B., O’Brian, S., Onslow,
M., Packman, A. & Iverach, L. (2012). Camperdown
program for adults who stutter: A student training clinic
Phase 1 trial.
International Journal of Language and
Communication Disorders
,
47
(4), 365–372.
Patricia McCabe
Do properly supervised students provide therapy equivalent
to that of experienced clinicians? The profession has an
interest in this question as it underlies the provision of
clinical education placements. Indeed, in any situation
where student therapy may be charged for, such as a
university clinic, there is an ethical imperative to advise
potential patients and their carers of the answer and allow
them to make an informed decision about their treatment. It
is therefore surprising how little information is available
about the efficacy of student provided therapy per se.
