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From: Judy Kuster
Date: 10/12/02
Time: 8:15:07 AM
Remote Name: 65.29.28.137
Best wishes on an interesting, important, and probably bigger-challenge-than-you-anticipated poster for ASHA You said your poster is on "resources for parents of children who stutter." That is a pretty broad topic! For example, SFA has a lot of appropriate materials for parents of children who stutter. So does NSA. So do other support organizations around the world, such as BSA. Probably so does the Stuttering Home Page. There are also many books about stuttering, many of which, in my opinion, are good resources for parents (such as Ben Has Something to Say, the Mary Marony series, etc.) But to sort out and evaluate what is appropriate for parents of children who stutter from resources that have a more general focus relating to stuttering, will probably be a challenge. And to hold each piece of good information various resources provide to your criteria will also be a challenge, if not unfair..
You didn't mention if you were focusing only on "websites" in your poster, although did say you were including them. You listed some potentially important criteria. But it will also be important to take a look at the intended purpose of the website, I would think. Using your criteria, you will exclude the online conferences. There is valuable information for parents, for example, in several of the papers on the online conferences that have been going on for the past five years. Several presentations do not meet each of your stated criteria, yet can be very beneficial for parents of children/teens who stutter, such as:
What Parents Can Do For Your Child When He Is Being Teased For Stuttering by Gail Wilson Lew
Lessons from Within the Stuttering Community: Perspective of a Teenager and his Parent by Jay Castleberry and Susan Short Castleberry,
An Interview with Caroline: You can do something about teasing! by Lynne Shields and Caroline
To me, it might be inappropriate to create a list of "these are the best resources for parents of children who stutter" using your criteria. You can use those criteria to create a list, certainly, but to state the assumption that these are the best or only places to recommend to parents, will narrow the focus of SLPs who should be looking much more broadly than that.
Using your narrow criteria, you could perhaps exclude the SHP I suppose, which of course is your decision. All of your criteria are met "somewhere" on the SHP, but the narrow focus of being geared only to parents of children who stutter is not the intended purpose of the SHP (or of SFA or NSA, etc. for that matter). Yet, there is an assortment of valuable information to suggest to parents, depending on their individual needs on the SHP. There are even several internet sites which are really commercial in nature (advertise specific programs) that have excellent information about stuttering in them. Focusing on "sites" as you apparently intend to do, may look like an advertisement for endorsement of a specific program. Yet the material on their page will probably meet all of your criteria. Will you exclude commercial sites? I totally agree with individualizing and suggesting certain resources, or parts of resources, to parents of children who stutter. But, in my opinion, you need to be careful you are not producing "the list" and excluding other potentially valuable resources and information by doing it.
Just my opinion.
I'm looking forward to seeing your poster! Save me a handout - I suspect it will be a popular item;-)
Judy