SFA Outreach Tops 43,571 Pediatricians

English/Spanish DVD Superb New Resource

Reaching well over 43,571 pediatricians with the latest information about stuttering is a goal The Stuttering Foundation will realize this fall. In an exciting development, that information is now available on a new DVD with English and Spanish versions of Stuttering and Your Child: Help for Families.

With a new grant from The Annenberg Foundation, the SFA will complete the ambitious project begun three years ago—to reach every pediatric office across the country with effective guidelines on when to refer and information to share with parents.

This year's mailing to 6,386 pediatric practices—often with as many as eight pediatricians in each—in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey will bring to 43,571 the number of practices which have been sent the 16-page book The Child Who Stutters: To the Pediatrician, the video/DVD Stuttering and The Preschool Child, brochures and contact information for resources.

With each package costing approximately $10, the total expenditure on the project exceeds $430,000. For the past three years, The Annenberg Foundation has helped support this critical undertaking.

Last fall, the SFA sent information packets to 5,251 pediatric offices throughout Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, and Ohio.

Back in 1991, the SFA started exhibiting at the Convention of the American Academy of Pediatrics and realized the need to develop materials specifically for physicians. A group of professionals was convened to create a book specifically for pediatricians, which offers "the necessary information in a clear and succinct manner," according to Michael B. Grizzard, M.D., a consultant on the project.

A new third edition of The Child Who Stutters: To the Pediatrician reflects gains made in the field in the intervening years. The book now includes an etiology and a chart delineating the differences between normal disfluencies, mild stuttering and severe stuttering, with suggestions for when an SLP should be consulted.

The Child Who Stutters: to the Pediatrician may be downloaded for free from the Foundation's Web site. It is also available on the Foundation's Spanish site at www.tartamudez.org.