About the Young Researchers Series Courses

The purpose of this series is to share recent research in stuttering, specifically by giving a platform to today’s younger researchers, who will be leading the field in the future. The series features speakers who have completed their PhD in the past 5 years.

The format consists of a video interview discussing highlights and clinical implications of their work. The goal of this series is to help SLPs stay up to date on current research in stuttering.

Course Content

This course features an interview with Dr. Cara Singer who discusses characteristics that contribute to stuttering persistence. Dr. Singer presents her research on clinical characteristics that differentiate persistence vs. recovery of stuttering and how this relates to the development of stuttering. Clinical implications and future work are discussed.     

Learning Outcomes

Participants will be able to:

• Identify 5 risk factors for stuttering persistence
• Explain how stuttering persistence relates to the multifactorial dynamic pathways model of stuttering
• Identify 3 domains to assess during a stuttering evaluation

Agenda

Run-time: 30:38

Interviewer questions:

• How did you become interested in stuttering research?
• Tell me about your research.
• Why is it important to study the factors that are associated with stuttering persistence?
• What is a meta-analysis and why is this research significant?
• What did you find are the clinical characteristics that differentiate children who persist in stuttering and children who recover from stuttering?
• Can you explain the finding that increased stuttering frequency predicts stuttering persistence?
• What do you make of children who persist and don’t have any of these risk factors?
• Yesterday I spoke to Evan Usler about the MDP model. How do these findings relate to this model?
• How can SLPs use this knowledge in their assessment and treatment of young children who stutter?
• What is the biggest thing that you want SLPs to take away from your research?
• What is the biggest thing that you want SLPs to take away from your research?
• Is there a certain treatment approach that might have meshed well with what you’re finding here?
• What are your next steps in this research?
• Do you have any plans to get this research out to pediatricians? 
• Tell me about your work on attention and persistence of stuttering.
• Why do you think attention is a factor in persistence?
• What is your hope for the direction of this topic?

Presenters

Courtney Luckman, MA, CCC-SLP, is a person who stutters and clinician at speech IRL specializing in the areas of stuttering and autism. She has presented on stuttering research and clinical applications at several national conferences. Her masters thesis on lexical skills in children who stutter was recently published in the Journal of Fluency Disorders. Courtney is active in the stuttering community, currently serving as chair of the junior board for Shared Voices, a Chicago community center for people who stutter.   

Cara M. Singer, PhD, CCC-SLP, is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Grand Valley State University. Before pursuing a career in academics, she received her master’s in speech-language pathology from the University of Iowa and worked as a speech language pathologist working primarily with children with speech and language disorders and adults and children who stutter. She then pursued her doctorate at Vanderbilt University where she focused on stuttering under the mentorship of Robin Jones and Ellen Kelly. Her primary research interest relates to childhood stuttering, with a focus on improving prognostic assessments and social-emotional outcomes in children (and adults) who stutter.   

Disclosures

Courtney Luckman

Financial: Courtney is an employee of and receives salary from speech IRL.

Non-financial: Courtney is chair of the junior board of Shared Voices Chicago.

Cara Singer

Financial: Dr. Singer received an honorarium for this talk. 

Non-financial: None

Special Needs

Contact learn@speechIRL.com for any special needs requests.

Course Completion Requirements

This course is offered for 0.05 ASHA CEUs (Introductory level, Professional area).

Successful completion of the post-test (>80%) and completion of the course evaluation is required to earn ASHA CEUs. 

A purchased online course can be refunded by contacting learn@speechIRL.com within 30 days of purchase. The course materials must not have been viewed or downloaded. 

If you are not 100% satisfied with speech IRL’s continuing education services, please contact the course organizer at learn@speechIRL.com for a full refund.