Contemporary clinical conversations about stuttering: Does the cause of stuttering matter to clinicians?

Purpose: To discuss whether stuttering causality matters to clinicians during clinical practice, and how and why it might matter. Additionally, to provide early-career clinicians and students with entry-level assistance with this complex topic.

Method: The issue was discussed by two academics and two experienced speech-language pathologists in private practice.

Contemporary clinical conversations about stuttering: How clinically important is mental health during management of early stuttering?

Purpose: To discuss how clinically important mental health is during management of early stuttering. To inform early-career clinicians and students of speech-language pathology about contemporary views on this issue.

Method: The issue was discussed by three speech-language pathologists and a clinical psychologist.

Contemporary clinical conversations about stuttering: Can intervention stop early stuttering development?

Purpose: To discuss whether early intervention can stop stuttering development. To inform junior clinicians and students of speech-language pathology about contemporary views on this issue.

Method: The issue was discussed by two university researchers and two speech-language pathologists who provide public clinical services.

Lidcombe Program telehealth treatment for children 6-12 years of age: A Phase II trial.

Background: For children older than 6 years who stutter, there is a gap in clinical research. This is an issue for speech-language pathologists because the tractability of stuttering decreases and the risk of long-term psychological consequences increase with age.

Purpose: To report a Phase II trial of a telehealth version of the Lidcombe Program with school-age children.

Contemporary clinical conversations about stuttering: What does brain imaging research mean to clinicians?

Purpose: To discuss among neuroscientists and community speech-language pathologists what brain imaging research means to clinicians.

Method: Two university neuroscientists and two speech-language pathologists in private practice discussed the matter. Written conversational turns in an exchange were limited to 100 words each.

Ann Packman: Reflections on a career.

This is the fourth in a series of papers that provides an historical record in this journal of contributions made by the most influential figures in the field of stuttering. Ann Packman is an Australian researcher who will retire shortly. This paper reflects on her long and productive career, and her contributions to the field.

The Fifth Croatia Stuttering Symposium: Part I. Treatments for early stuttering.

Purpose: The Fifth Croatia Stuttering Symposium in 2022 continued the Fourth Croatia Stuttering Symposium 2019 theme of the connection between research and clinical practice. At the 2022 Symposium, there were 145 delegates from 21 countries. This paper documents the contents of the first of three Symposium modules.

The Fifth Croatia Stuttering Symposium: Part II. Natural recovery from early stuttering.

Purpose: The Fifth Croatia Stuttering Symposium of 2022 continued the Fourth Croatia Stuttering Symposium 2019 theme of the connection between research and clinical practice. At the 2022 Symposium, there were 145 delegates from 21 countries. This paper documents the contents of the second of three Symposium modules.

Reduced stuttering for school-age children: A systematic review.

Background: Treatment of school-age children (6-12 years of age) who stutter is a public health priority. Their clinical needs include a psychosocial focus and stuttering reduction. For the latter clinical need, there is a critical window of opportunity for these children warranting research attention.

Contemporary clinical conversations about stuttering: Neurodiversity and ableism.

Purpose: To discuss issues about neurodiversity and ableism, and how they pertain to clinical management of stuttering, with particular reference to early childhood stuttering.

Methods: During a webinar this year, the issue emerged of how concepts of neurodiversity and ableism apply to early childhood stuttering during the pre-school years. It became apparent that this topic elicited disparate views and would be of particular interest to students of speech-language pathology.

Cost of Illness and Health-Related Quality of Life for Stuttering: Two Systematic Reviews.

Purpose: For those who stutter, verbal communication is typically compromised in social situations. This may attract negative responses from listeners and stigmatization by society. These have the potential to impair health-related quality of life across a range of domains, including qualitative and quantitative impacts on speech output, mental health issues, and failure to attain educational and occupational potential.

The Fifth Croatia Stuttering Symposium: Part III. Mental health and early stuttering.

Purpose: The Fifth Croatia Stuttering Symposium of 2022 continued the Fourth Croatia Stuttering Symposium 2019 theme of the connection between research and clinical practice. At the 2022 Symposium, there were 145 delegates from 21 countries. This paper documents the contents of the third of three Symposium modules.

Psychosocial features of stuttering for school-age children: A systematic review.

Background: Contemporary clinical and empirical perspectives indicate that management of the psychosocial features of stuttering is fundamental for effective treatment. Interventions that improve psychosocial outcomes for school-age children who stutter are, therefore, needed.

Aims: This systematic review identifies what psychosocial outcomes have been explored in existing school-age clinical research, the measures used and the potential treatment effects.

Barry Guitar: Reflections on a career.

This is the third in a series of papers that provides an historical record in this journal of contributions made by the most influential figures in the field of fluency disorders. The paper reflects on the long and productive career of Barry Guitar, documenting his outstanding achievements. The paper is based on interviews with him during 2022.

Searching for Lidcombe Program mechanisms of action: Inter-turn speaker latency.

The Lidcombe Program is a well-established and efficacious treatment for early stuttering, but little is currently known about its mechanisms of action. The present report explores the possibility that inter-turn speaker latency might be associated with such mechanisms of action. Inter-turn speaker latency was measured in audio recordings of children, parents, and clinicians conversing, taken during Lidcombe Program treatment consultations.

Lidcombe Program translation to community clinics in Australia and England.

Background: Early intervention is essential healthcare for stuttering, and the translation of research findings to community settings is a potential roadblock to it.

Aims: This study was designed to replicate and extend the Lidcombe Program community translation findings of O'Brian et al. (2013) but with larger participant numbers, incorporating clinicians (speech pathologists/speech anlanguage therapists) and their clients from Australia and England.

Stuttering, family history and counselling: A contemporary database.

Background: Information about genetic influence is useful to when counselling parents or caregivers who have infants and children at risk for stuttering. Yet, the most comprehensive family aggregate database to inform that counselling is nearly four decades old (Andrews et al., 1983).

The Complexity of Stuttering Behavior in Adults and Adolescents: Relationship to Age, Severity, Mental Health, Impact of Stuttering, and Behavioral Treatment Outcome.

Purpose: This study investigated the complexity of stuttering behavior. It described and classified the complexity of stuttering behavior in relation to age, behavioral treatment outcomes, stuttering severity, anxiety-related mental health, impact of stuttering, and gender.

Method: For this study, a taxonomy was developed-LBDL-C7-which was based on the Lidcombe Behavioral Data Language of stuttering.

White matter connectivity in neonates at risk of stuttering: Preliminary data.

Background: Developmental stuttering is thought to be underpinned by structural impairments in the brain. The only way to support the claim that these are causal is to determine if they are present before onset.

Materials And Methods: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was conducted on 18 neonates, aged 8-18 weeks, 6 of whom were determined to be genetically at risk of stuttering.

Comparison of Stuttering Severity and Anxiety During Standard and Challenge Phone Calls.

Purpose: This study was designed to answer three questions. (a) Does percentage of syllables stuttered (%SS) differ between standard and challenge phone calls. (b) Does anxiety differ between standard and challenge phone calls.

Conversational speech of school-age children after syllable-timed speech treatment for stuttering.

The purpose of this laboratory study was to investigate whether rhythmic speech was primarily responsible for stuttering reductions in four school-aged children after the instatement stage of the Westmead Program of syllable-timed speech (STS) intervention. The study was designed to inform further development of the program. Reduction in variability of vowel duration is a marker of STS, and it was predicted that this would be present in the children's conversational speech after Stage 1 of the program if they were using STS.

Contemporary issues with stuttering: The Fourth Croatia Stuttering Symposium.

Purpose: During the 2019 Fourth Croatia Clinical Symposium, speech-language pathologists (SLPs), scholars, and researchers from 29 countries discussed speech-language pathology and psychological practices for the management of early and persistent stuttering. This paper documents what those at the Symposium considered to be the key contemporary clinical issues for early and persistent stuttering.

Methods: The authors prepared a written record of the discussion of Symposium topics, taking care to ensure that the content of the Symposium was faithfully reproduced in written form.

Measures of Psychological Impacts of Stuttering in Young School-Age Children: A Systematic Review.

Purpose Recent research has shown that some school-age children who stutter may have speech-related anxiety. Given this, speech-language pathologists require robust measures to assess the psychological effects of stuttering during the school-age years. Accordingly, this systematic review aimed to explore available measures for assessing the psychological impacts of stuttering in young school-age children and to examine their measurement properties.

Psychological characteristics of early stuttering.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to use psychological measures of pre-schoolers who stutter and their parents to inform causal theory development and influence clinical practices. This was done using data from a substantive clinical cohort of children who received early stuttering treatment.

Method: The cohort ( = 427) comprised parents and their children who were treated with the Lidcombe Program, the Westmead Program, and the Oakville Program.

Validity of telephone calls to assess percentage of syllables stuttered with adolescents in clinical research.

Purpose: Karimi, O'Brian, Onslow, and Jones (2013) reported, for adults, no systematic differences between percentage of syllables stuttered (%SS) scores during a 12-hour day and 10-minute phone calls. The present study replicated that finding with adolescents, using valid methods for the age group. The present study also extended that initial report by determining whether the gender of the caller influenced %SS scores.