Intensive Courses for People Who Stammer
Intensive Course For Young People Who Stammer
Description of the Course
We normally run two one-week courses during the Spring and Summer school holidays. Follow-up days will also be held at intervals.
Students (as the young people attending the course are termed) are welcome to attend more than one course, although a single course may be sufficient.
Our primary aim is to reduce the anxiety and embarrassment associated with stammering (or stuttering) and to make our students more confident about tackling the speech situations that they normally fear or avoid. We work to improve communications skills and to reduce the severity of the stammer to a more comfortable level for both speaker and listener.
We normally run two groups, with between eight and ten students in each group. The age range we accept is from approximately eight years to eleven years in the Junior Group and from twelve years to eighteen plus for the Senior Group. We are always prepared to consider older applicants. Each group is run by a speech and language therapist, with the support of speech and language therapy students. This enables us to provide individual help where appropriate and support on ‘outside’ assignments.
Each day of the course starts at 10.00 a.m. and finishes at 4.00 p.m. There is a lunch break from 1.00 - 2.00 p.m. Students can either bring
a packed lunch, or go out to a number of local take-aways and sandwich bars. Junior students are not allowed out unaccompanied.
Whilst we appreciate that many parents are working and may find it difficult to attend the whole course, they are welcome to join the course with their children if they are able to do so. We actively encourage parents of the Junior Group to attend and if there are sufficient parents we are able to run discussion groups for them during the week. It is very important that all parents attend the final afternoon of the course, so that we can discuss progress and suggest ways in which they can help maintain that progress. The children work on a performance for parents and it is obviously disappointing if they do not come. It also limits the value of the course if parents are not aware of how their children have been working to improve their communication.
Referring therapists are also welcome to join us if they wish to do so.
Applicants should send in their forms as soon as possible in order to guarantee a place on the course.
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