Mini-KIDS direct treatment for young children who stutter - workshop in Norway

30th, 31th october and 1th november 2018 Veerle Waelkens, Speech therapist and fluency specialist held a workshop in the Mini-KIDS stuttering treatment programme.

The workshop was organized in Lillestrøm, 10 minutes outside of Oslo. 30 SLTs and SLT students attended the workshop. The first day focused mainly on how the Mini-KIDS treatment programme evaluate the childs fluency and how it is affected by different factors. Waelkens often commented on some similarities with the RestartDCM treatment. The two remaining days focused on the treatment process where Waelkens first talked about the youngest children and then moved on to the older preschoolers and how the treatment process may differ based on age.

This is the first Mini-KIDS direct treatment for young children who stutter in Norway and Scandinavia. Many of the participants found it interesting how direct the treatment deals with the stuttering and how important it is to get a mandate for treatment by both the child and its parents. Many has alreadu formed Mini-KIDS discussion groups.

What is effective treatment

Waelkens pointed out that zero stuttering is the first goal, but some children will probably continiue to stutter. Then the goal is functional coping. As I see it, The Mini-KIDS treatment brings back the art in stuttering treatment and an clear understanding of stuttering in a life perspective.

Another workshop in 2019?

We recieved several requests from SLTs in other European countries. The workshop quickly got full, but hopefully we will be able to do another workshop in 2019. Fingers crossed!

Take a look at this interview with Veerle Waelkens, done by the Norwegian stuttering association

- Tommy, SLT, ECSF graduate