Educational Conferences,
Workshops, and Symposia
From its inception, one of the primary goals of the Foundation was to discuss and attempt to resolve the many questions surrounding stuttering. Through the years, the Foundation has met this challenge through a variety of educational meetings and seminars including:
- Intensive, week-long conferences during which authorities in the field create videotapes and books.
- Two-day symposia to educate professionals and to focus on a specific topic such as working with the school-age child.
- Two-week program for in-depth specialty training: Stuttering Therapy: Workshop for Specialists. From 1985 through 2001, this program was co-sponsored with Northwestern University.
- Five-day intensive training workshops Diagnosis and Treatment of Children Who Stutter: Practical Strategies. These programs are co-sponsored by leading universities.
Please see What's New
or CEU Opportunites for announcements of upcoming
conferences, workshops and symposia.
1. Intensive Week-Long Conferences
The Foundation held its first conference in 1957 to bring together eminent speech pathologists and authorities in psychology, psychiatry, and even cultural anthropology for a week of discussions to see if they could agree upon general guidelines for a comprehensive program on stuttering. This was the first opportunity these professionals had had to confer as a group for such an extended period of time.
The conference resulted in a book,
On Stuttering: Its Treatment. This was no small feat considering the disagreements and diversity of thought among authorities at that time. The book was sent free of charge to the members of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association who passed a resolution expressing their “deep appreciation” to the Foundation for its sponsorship and publication of the book. Since that time, the organization has sponsored many such forums during which leading speech pathology professionals have shared ideas.These week-long conferences have been critical in working towards agreement concerning therapy techniques. Since the first book was published 46 years ago, Stuttering Foundation books have been translated into 22 foreign languages and have reached over 10 million individuals.
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1957 Conference. Front row: Dr. Dean Williams, Malcolm Fraser, Dr. Stanley Ainsworth, Dr. Robert West; Back row: Dr. Henry Freund, Dr. Hal Luper, Dr. Wendell Johnson, Dr. Joseph Sheehan, Dr. Charles Van Riper. (Click on the picture to view a larger image.) |
2. Two-Day Symposia
The Foundation’s two-day symposia, which pinpoint and focus attention on specific areas of stuttering, bring together outstanding professionals in the field and those wanting to increase their therapeutic skills. These conferences have been co-sponsored by some of the leading speech pathology departments in the world:
- Northwestern University
- University of Alberta, Canada
- University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana
- College of Speech Therapy, Queen’s College,
- Oxford University, England
- The George Washington University
- University of Tennessee, Knoxville
- University of Nebraska, Lincoln
- University of Maryland, College Park
- University of Colorado, Boulder
- University of South Florida
- University of Memphis
- California Speech-Language-Hearing Association
- Wichita State University
- University of South Carolina
- University of Utah
- Texas Christian University
3. Workshop to Train Specialists in Stuttering
From 1985-2001 an annual, two-week workshop for specialists, organized and directed by Hugo H. Gregory, Ph.D., at Northwestern University, offered speech clinicians a unique opportunity to explore therapy issues and treatment methods with children and adults in an in-depth fashion.
The Foundation co-sponsored this workshop, training participants from 28 countries. Programs such as the Association Parole Bégaiement in Paris and a similar foundation in South Africa are direct results as graduates share what they have learned with colleagues and compatriots.
4. Five-Day Intensive Training Workshop
A five-day, intensive training workshop offers speech-language clinicians an opportunity to improve the diagnosis and treatment skills in working with elementary school-age children who stutter.
The first workshop was held in 1996, organized and directed by Dr. Susan Dietrich of the University of North Carolina and Dr. Sheryl Gottwald of the University of New Hampshire, with the collaboration of Maureen Tardelli, M.Ed. It now alternates annually between Boston and Greensboro, North Carolina.
Annual workshops are also held in Tallahassee, Florida, under the leadership of Lisa Scott Trautman, Ph.D., and Kristin A. Chmela, M.A., co-sponsored with Florida State University, and in Seattle, Washington, under the leadership of Susan Hamilton, M.A. and Marilyn Langevin, M.A., co-sponsored with the University of Washington.