'We saw a general SLT but this didn't help Olivia,' says Lesley. 'It took me six to nine months of fighting to get a referral to the Michael Palin Centre in central London. Initially we had a four-hour meeting for the whole family to talk about the background and decide on the therapy.Then Olivia started going once a week from January.
'Olivia started with a similar programme to the Lidcombe, as I had done that before and knew how it worked. The technique is to praise the child a great deal over a week or two to build up their confidence. Then you look at a book and get them to say just one word in response to a question, such as 'What colour is that dog?' and when they say, 'Blue,' you say, 'That was really smooth talking, well done.' If they stammer, you say, 'That was a bit bumpy -let's do it again without the bump.' You progress to using more and more words, and after the child has said ten words without stammering you can progress to correcting them in free speech. After each session the child gets a small reward.
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