What is Lidcombe?

The Lidcombe therapy was developed by Prof. Mark Onslow and others (sorry if I dont have names). It is foremost a behavioural therapy, and tries to change the speech behaviour of the children by enlisting the parents to point out fluent speech and dysfluent speech.

Here is a description of Lidcombe, which I have shortened a bit:

The program is administered by a parent (or carer) in the child's everyday environment. Parents learn how to do the treatment during weekly visits to the speech pathologist. At these visits, the speech pathologist trains the parent by demonstrating various features of the treatment, observing the parent do the treatment, and giving the parent feedback about how they are going with the treatment. This parent training is essential, because it is the speech pathologist's responsibility to ensure that the treatment is done appropriately and is a positive experience for the child and the family.

The treatment is direct. This means that it involves the parent commenting directly about the child's speech. This parental feedback is overwhelmingly positive, because the parent comments primarily when the child speaks fluently and only occasionally when the child stutters. The parent does not comment on the child's speech all the time, but chooses specific times during the day in which to give the child feedback.

As well as learning how to give feedback effectively, the parent also learns to measure the child's stuttering by scoring it....

The Lidcombe Program is conducted in two stages. In Stage 1, the parent conducts the treatment each day and the parent and child attend the speech clinic once a week. This continues until stuttering either disappears or reaches a very low level. Stage 2 of the program commences at this point. The aim of Stage 2 is to maintain the absence, or low level, of stuttering for at least one year. The frequency of parental feedback during Stage 2 is reduced, as is the frequency of clinic visits, providing that stuttering remains at the low level at entry to Stage 2. This maintenance part of the program is essential because it is well known that stuttering may reappear after the conclusion of an apparently successful treatment. (taken from the Australian Stuttering Research Centre site)