Assessment of Overt & Covert Features
Trudy Stewart, Jackie Turnbull · 2017
This chapter discusses ways of assessing dysfluency in children in whom such a diagnosis is clear and the assessment is to be used for ascertaining severity and/or as a base measure against which to reassess in the future. By listening to a child talking informally, it is certainly possible to note down various observations about the nature, type, duration and so on of the dysfluencies. Because of the dynamic nature of stammering, some of the behaviours the child exhibits may not be apparent when the assessment is taking place. Having a measure of a child&s;s speaking rate may be useful in helping the clinician decide if rate control should be a part of any treatment package. A child&s;s speech when stammering, especially if the duration of individual stammers is particularly long, may of course appear very slow. Place of dysfluency is mentioned very little in the literature, other than as a descriptor of stammering.