Research to date has shown that for preschool children participating in the program, stuttering is no longer present, or is present to only a very mild degree, after treatment, and that this outcome has been maintained in those children who have been monitored for a number of years. Indeed, parents report that their children are more outgoing and talk more after treatment because they are no longer stuttering.
Some children recover naturally from stuttering.
An ASRC ranomised controlled trial of the Lidcombe Program is currently under way to explore efficacy of this treatment. In the meantime, there is enough evidence to suggest that the program has a powerful therapeutic effect that is over and above the effects of natural recovery. First, factors that predict how quickly children respond to the treatment are different from factors that predict natural recovery and, second, the program reduces stuttering in older children for whom natural recovery is unlikely.