University of Iowa camp helps children improve speech

Tuesday marked the end of camp for a group of children working to improve their speech at the University of Iowa Summer Program to Educate Adolescents and Kids who Stutter camp.

This year, 13 children who worked with 13 graduate students to identify and practice speech strategies, while still enjoying the many activities that come with camp.

'I just love watching how the kids mature,” said Toni Cilek, director of the program run through the UI Communication Sciences and Disorders department.

Cilek said that she enjoys seeing the children gain confidence while working with the graduate student counselors, who in turn are better prepared for their future professions.

The camp was started in 1946 and lasts nine days. The camp days are spread over several weeks, and is at the Wendell Johnson Speech and Hearing Clinic at the UI. The children had a week of therapy and then a week off, followed by follow-up days.

'It gives the kids some extra intensive therapy to work on their stuttering during the summer when they are not in school,” Cilek said, who explained that helping the children grow emotionally and socially also is important through interaction with other children who stutter. 'They give each other confidence and they empower each other.”

The graduate students work with the children on fluency therapy, which identifies strategies that can help them become more fluent. They also work on stuttering modification strategies that teach them to manage their stuttering in different situations.

'Each of the kids has their own strategies that they're using,” said Maggie Leonard, a graduate student involved with the camp. 'We play a variety of different games, and throughout it us clinicians are prompting the kids to use their strategies and reinforcing them when they are.”

Throughout the camp, the children, ages 8 to 12, go out on activities that allow them to interact with other people and practice their skills.

Sam Wantock, 12, who attended the camp for the fourth time this year. He said his strategy when he speaks is to use medium speed and prolongation where he relaxes his muscles and tries to flow through the words.

'I can honestly say that I've made a lot of friends here,” said Wantock, who also said that the practice he receives from the camp is a reason he keeps coming back.

Children in the camp went on a scavenger hunt Tuesday in Iowa City, and gave presentations in front of a crowd to wrap up their camp time.

'It's a lot like an athletic practice or music practice,” said Cilek, who has worked with the program since she was a graduate student in 1975. 'You learn your skills and your strategies, and then you go out into the game or into the performance and you try to use them. Then you evaluate how you did.”

l Comments: katelynn.mccollough@sourcemedia.net