IFA Congresses

Three-Pronged Approach to the Conceptualization of Cluttering (TPA-CC)

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Category: Joint World Congress 2018 Proceedings

Florence MYERS¹, Susanne COOK^2,3,  and Charley ADAMS^2,4

¹Adelphi University, Garden City, NY USA This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

²International Cluttering Association 

³Fairfax County Public Schools, VA USA This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

⁴University of South Carolina, SC USA This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract.  A recent survey of 70 speech-language pathologists indicated that many clinicians feel they need to learn more about the nature of cluttering (Cook & Adams, 2016).  At the 2016 American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association convention, the Executive Board of the International Cluttering Association formed an ad-hoc committee to develop a functional, consensus-driven definition of cluttering to help facilitate greater understanding of the nature of cluttering.  The committee considered certain premises: that a ‘definition’ of cluttering requires much more research; that reliance on words alone to describe cluttering is not sufficient for the understanding of cluttering; that listening to samples of cluttered speech is obligatory toward understanding the perceptual nature of cluttering; that there is great benefit to be gained by learning from insights shared by people with cluttering (PWC) about their communication.  The Three-Pronged Approach for the Conceptualization of Cluttering (TPA-CC) was thus formulated, unveiled at the World Congress in Hiroshima and subsequently uploaded on the International Cluttering Association website to be universally available to professionals and nonprofessionals.

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Stuttering and Mental Health: International advocacy efforts for awareness and treatment

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Category: Joint World Congress 2018 Proceedings

Mark IRWIN^1*, Gerald MAGUIRE², and Annie BRADBERRY³

¹ International Fluency Association This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 ² National Stuttering Association This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

³ International Stuttering Association This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract: The stuttering disorder has been shown to be associated with the same quality of life impairment as stroke, diabetes and heart disease (Blumgart, Tran, & Craig, 2010) but it receives far less funding and is still poorly understood. Why is this so? What can be done? Thispaper sets out to discuss a possible solution to this situation through a particular consideration of stuttering and mental health. It follows an initiative of the International Fluency Association’s Self Help and Advocacy (SHA) Committee which had agreed in early 2018 to request the stuttering community adopt the concept of Stuttered Speech Syndrome where Social Anxiety Disorder, which is also known to negatively impact quality of life and fluency, interweaves with stuttering. The aim is to provide weight to long-standing research-based recommendations that speech language pathologists routinely screen for Social Anxiety Disorder and, where positive, collaborate with a licensed mental health professional in multi-disciplinary care. The need for this concept has been agreed by the National Stuttering Association and the International Stuttering Association.

*Corresponding author

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Voices of Experience - Perspectives on Therapy Type and Need

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Category: Joint World Congress 2018 Proceedings

¹ International Fluency Association This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

² International Stuttering Association This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.                                                                                                 

Abstract. The speech disruption of Stuttering is restrictive, but any interweaving Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is much more restrictive. That is, in addition to experiencing dysfluency, to also suffer the shame, embarrassment, frustration and fear of stuttering to such an extent it causes a cycle of more stuttering, avoidance of social interaction, psychiatric ill health, and significant impairment of academic and career achievement, is more than just a speech problem.  Awareness of this fact is difficult to make given both conditions are referred to as Stuttering (now given the term Childhood Onset Fluency Disorder). The inability to differentiate these conditions succinctly has negative implications for public awareness messages and therapy. It restricts awareness of Social Anxiety Disorder by speech therapists as well as people who stutter, and therefore restricts the likelihood of referral for multi-disciplinary care. It also causes confusion with discussions of recovery. Has there been recovery from stuttering, recovery from SAD or recovery from both? The two authors make reference to their own contrasting personal experiences to highlight these issues and present a case for naming stuttering subtypes based on the presence or absence of SAD. 

*Corresponding author

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Uniting PWS, PWC, Family and Researcher Perspectives on the Important Research Questions in Fluency Disorders

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Category: Joint World Congress 2018 Proceedings

Nan BERNSTEIN RATNER¹, Hanan HURWITZ², Annie BRADBERRY³, and Kathleen SCALER SCOTT⁴

¹ University of Maryland, College Park This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

² Israeli Stuttering Association This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

³International Fluency Association This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

⁴Misericordia University This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract. There is limited evidence of stakeholder involvement in setting priorities for stuttering and cluttering research. This paper will briefly summarize survey results gathered pre-Congress asking major stakeholders to detail their highest priority research questions, and use these data as a starting point to encourage interaction between researchers and consumers in setting priorities that can encourage funded research and advocacy efforts most meaningful to people who stutter (PWS) and families.

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The Clinical Application of Prosthetic Tactile Pacing on Quantitative Stuttering Severity

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Category: Joint World Congress 2018 Proceedings

Greg SNYDER, Sydney GULLEY, and Elizabeth WYLOT
The University of Mississippi, University, MS, USA

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Abstract.  This study tested the effects of a tactile pacing smartphone application on overt stuttering frequency.  A smartphone application was developed by StutterLess LLC that uses the touch screens and vibration motors within Android or iPhone smartphones to provide discreet user-activated vibrotactile pacing.  This study reports data for increased overt fluency of speech in an adult stuttering population, whereby participants spoke concurrently with initiatory tactile pulses (ranging from approximately 0.5 to 1.0 second intervals) originating from a handheld smartphone during speech production.  Participants who stutter used the StutterLess smartphone application for 3 weeks; data was collected on a weekly basis over videoconference.  Results indicate that the StutterLess smartphone application was an effective fluency enhancer for over 60% of research participants; during this 3 week trial, users showed no signs of adaptation to vibrotactile pacing, but instead demonstrated trends toward increased fluency enhancement over time.

Read more: The Clinical Application of Prosthetic Tactile Pacing on Quantitative Stuttering Severity