Which other agencies can I collaborate with to develop a plan for supporting a student who stammers?

Speech and Language Therapists are allied health professionals who specialise in speech, language and communication difficulties, and therefore are trained to work with children who stammer.

Collaborating with a Speech and Language Therapist can be beneficial for a number of reasons, for example:

• They will complete a comprehensive assessment of the child’s understanding of language, vocabulary learning skills, their ability to use speech sounds to form words, the child’s skills in putting words together in sentences as well as their stammer/fluency skills. All of these factors can play a part in how a stammer presents in the academic activities in the classroom, and inform the best approach and strategies to support that particular student. 
• They can help to identify factors in the classroom that might be contributing to the stammer.
• They will provide pupil-specific ideas about how to modify the classroom environment and activities to minimise the impact of the stammer on academic performance.
• They can engage in regular troubleshooting about challenges that might arise in the classroom linked to stammering.
• They typically liaise between the inclusion team, parents, teaching staff and other professionals such as educational psychologists to maximise the effectiveness of interventions.
• They can offer ideas about how to raise awareness about stammering with peers and across the school.
• They provide regular progress reports about the child’s speech and language skills and recommend strategies to support the child in the classroom.

For more information about the role of Speech and Language Therapists, you can visit their professional body website, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.