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Título

SLEEP QUALITY & STUTTERING: A SPEECH THERAPY CASE STUDY

Introdução

Male child, 4 years old 11 months of age, presenting intense stuttering for 18 months, manifesting word and syllable repetitions, sound prolongations and blocks. He used electronics at night, falling asleep around 23:00 pm, waking up with resistance and parental effort at 7:00 am, slept an average of 8 hours/night with nose breathing and without awakes and snoring. According to his teachers, the child “was a good student, very intelligent but on some days inattentive and restless without apparent cause”. He was monitored by a speech therapist weekly for 7 months, where specific therapy for stuttering was performed.

Objetivo

The speech fluency disorders have been present in the speech therapy clinic for many years. Recent researches have suggested a linkage between neurodevelopmental stuttering and sleep quality. It is intended that this knowledge is shared and used with the families of children who stutter and disseminated among health professionals, especially speech therapists who work in the diagnosis and treatment of disfluencies.

Métodos

The child and his family were informed about the importance of sleep, its correlation with speech fluency and the application of sleep hygiene. The therapist presented them with the “Sleep Diary” containing the following six items: bedtime and waking up, hours of sleep, use of electronics at night, intensity of stuttering and signs of drowsiness and/or agitation during the day. The family was asked to fill in this diary daily. For the quantitative responses (last two), numerical marks from 0-5 were used, with 0 (zero) being no symptom and 5 (five) maximum level. Questionnaire data were analyzed weekly and adjustments to the sleep routine were proposed.

Resultados

The child went to sleep at 9:30 pm, time to wake up remained, but without effort. The use of electronics was limited to up to one hour before sleep. Stuttering presented decreasing scores, being on average 4 (four) in the initial weeks and 1 (one) in the final weeks. Signs of drowsiness and/or agitation during the day went from 3 (three) on average to less than 1 (one).

Conclusões

It was possible to observe that better sleep quality combined with less stuttering manifestation. As a final result of the therapy, the patient showed great improvement in his speech fluency, maintenance of healthy sleep habits and reduction of behavioral complaints at school. After this experience, the family reported greater attention and valuing of good sleep health.

Palavras-chave

SLEEP QUALITY, STUTTERING, SPEECH THERAPY