25 / 64
www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au
JCPSLP
Volume 19, Number 2 2017
79
9-months post-commencement point was 1.5 (SD = 0.9;
Range = 1–3). At this time point, 80% of the children were
reported to have an SR = 2 or less.
The repeated measures GEE analyses for the
assessment time effect indicated for both %SS (Wald
X
2
(2)
= 95.410,
p
< 0.001) and SR (Wald
X
2
(2) = 175.251,
p
<
0.001) that there was a statistically significant effect over
the three assessment times. The time-specific comparisons
indicated a significant reduction in stuttering with a large
effect size between the baseline scores at the initial
assessment (T1) and the 6-months post-commencement
assessment (T2) for both %SS (Wald
X
2
(1) = 56.71,
p
<
0.001, effect size 1.71) and SR (Wald
X
2
(1) = 88.69,
p
< 0.001, effect size 2.26). Subsequently, there was only
a non-significant change, with a negligible effect size,
between the 6-months post-commencement (T2) and
9-months post commencement assessment (T3) for both
%SS (
X
2
(1) = 0.655,
p
= 0.42, effect size 0.23) ) and SR
(
X
2
(1) = 0.48,
p
= 0.49, effect size 0.23) (see Table 3).
The %SS scores were comparable to the parent–clinician
agreed severity ratings (SR) taken within clinic at the same
points. The SR scale from 1 = no stutter to 10 = extremely
severe stuttering was used. A guideline update (Packman
et al., 2015) has subsequently changed the scale from
0 to 9. The mean SR for all the children assessed at the
Mean %SS
Figure 1. Mean clinician percentage syllable stuttered (%SS)
at initial assessment (n = 19), 6 months (n = 14) and 9 months
(n = 10) post-commencement of group treatment
12
1
8
6
4
2
0
Initial
assessment
6 months post-
commencement
9 months post
commencement
Mean SR
Figure 2. Mean parent–clinician severity rating (SR) at initial
assessment (n = 19), 6 months (n = 14) and 9 months (n = 10)
post-commencement of group treatment
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Initial
assessment
6 months post-
commencement
9 months post
commencement
Table 2. Clinician percent syllables stuttered (%SS) and parent–clinician agreed severity rating (SR) at initial
assessment, 6 and 9 months post-commencement assessment
Severity measure Assessment
n
Mean
SD
Min
Max
%SS
Initial assessment
19
7.4
3.9
2.6
17.0
6 months post-commencement
14
1.4
1.7
0
5.0
9 months post-commencement
10
1.3
2.1
0
5.3
SR
Initial assessment
19
5.3
1.6
3
8
6 months post-commencement
14
1.6
1.0
1
4
9 months post-commencement
10
1.5
.9
1
3
Table 3. Intention to treat analysis using
generalised estimating equation method
comparing clinician percentage syllables stuttered
(%SS) and parent–clinician agreed severity rating
(SR) initial assessment (T1), 6 months (T2) and 9
months (T3) post-commencement
N
Wald
X
2
df
p
Effect
size
%SS 19, 14, 10 T1 vs T2 56.707 1 <.001 1.71
T2 vs T3 .655
1 .418 .23
SR 19, 14, 10 T1 vs T2 88.692 1 <.001 2.26
T2 vs T3 .479
1 .489 .27
Discussion
This clinician-led trial is the first to investigate the short-term
treatment outcomes of the LP rolling-group model in
community settings. Across all measures, the community-
based SLPs achieved clinical outcomes similar to those
benchmarks published in the literature: mean clinician hours
to completion of Stage 1 (Arnott et al., 2014), median
number of clinical visits and weeks to attain Stage 2 (Arnott
et al., 2014; O’Brian et al., 2013; Rousseau, Packman,
Onslow, Harrison, & Jones, 2007) and percentage of
syllables stuttered (%SS) at criteria for Stage 2 (Arnott et al.,
2014; de Sonneville-Koedoot et al., 2015; Jones et al.,
2005). Stuttering severity levels exhibited a statistically
significant reduction between pre-treatment and 6-months