This webinar presents a framework—inspired by research and practice from behavioral health and counseling psychology along with communication sciences and disorders—for assisting teens and adults in the design and implementation of stuttering intervention. The course is based on the concept that meaningful stuttering intervention and outcomes are based in the client’s and clinician’s shared understanding of the importance and weight that the client places on changing the physical attributes of stuttering, their thoughts and feelings about it, their use of avoidance strategies, and how ready they are to change one or all of these components. With these considerations in mind, the presenter offers strategies clinicians can use to help teens and adults who stutter make decisions about what they want to and can change in their experience of stuttering and then assist them in reaching their goals.

Learning Outcomes
You will be able to:

• Describe how an individual’s uncertainty in desired treatment outcomes and low self-confidence in their abilities can impact their readiness for change 
• Assess an individual’s readiness for change using the stage of change scale, decisional balance scale, and situational self-efficacy scale 
• Use motivational interviewing to help individuals who stutter identify their goals for stuttering treatment and increase their self-confidence in their ability to sustain change 
• Select treatment activities that are aligned with the individual’s current readiness for change

Contents

• Assessment
• Principles of change readiness
• Principles of stuttering intervention

Presenter Information

Patricia M. Zebrowski, PhD, CCC-SLP, BCS-S, is Professor Emerita at the University of Iowa and an American Board of Fluency and Fluency Disorders-recognized specialist. Her research, teaching, and clinical expertise is in the nature and treatment of stuttering, with special focus on adolescence. For over 20 years Tricia directed UISPEAKS, a summer residential therapy program for teenagers who stutter. In her recent work, she applied the Transtheoretical Model of behavior change to uncover the impact that thoughts and beliefs have on adolescents' readiness to engage in therapy. The results of this research were recently published in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_AJSLP-20-00186).Along with colleagues Dr. Edward Conture (Vanderbilt) and Dr. Julie Anderson (Indiana University), Tricia is co-editing the 4th edition of Stuttering and Related Disorders of Fluency, which will be published by Thieme.

What Participants Said:

It was amazing to learn about how research was developed and conducted and how the data was analyzed. I really appreciated how all terms were clearly defined. I really appreciated how Dr. Patricia Zebrowski explained why it is so important to determine why some clients benefit more than others from speech therapy. Dr. Patricia Zebrowski explained why it is so important to really understand the essential elements of the term "motivation."

This was very engaging and informational. I appreciated how clearly the concepts and theoretical underpinning was explained, and then how this could be used in practice with teens who stutter.

Financial Disclosures:

• Financial compensation from ASHA for this presentation
• Clinical research grant from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation

Nonfinancial Disclosures:

• None

Assessment Type

Self-assessment—Think about what you learned and report on the Completion Form how you will use your new knowledge.

To earn continuing education credit, you must complete and submit the learning assessment by October 1, 2027.

Program History and CE Information

Live webinar date: September 29, 2022
End date: October 1, 2027

This course is offered for 0.2 ASHA CEUs (Intermediate level, Professional area).