Office Hours: The Researcher is In

The following individuals who have been involved in research in the area of fluency and f serve as a panel to answer appropriately-posed questions about research in this area. This is especially designed to make the research understandable, not to evaluate it. It is a good opportunity for students, as well as parents of children who stutter, and for children, teens, and for adults who stutter to ask questions about research of several highly qualified researchers in the area of stuttering. Please do not use this forum to develop on-going discussion about various topics.

You can post Questions/comments to any or all of these researchers before October 22, 2005.


Klaas Bakker, associated with Missouri State University since 1990; specializes in fluency disorders; research focus on fluency disorders (assessment and diagnostic evaluation of cluttering and stuttering); develops new technologies for the assessment and measurement of clinical aspects of speech (dys)fluency; Associate Editor for the Journal of Fluency Disorders; Chair of the Taskforce on Technology of Special Interest Division 4 (Fluency and Fluency Disorders).
Hans-Georg Bosshardt, Ph.D.is a professor of psychology and vice-dean of the Department of Psychology at the Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany). He is a past president of the International Fluency Association and has the status of an ASHA international affiliate. He has published and presented several papers on stuttering and presently investigates how speech planning and short-term memory load affect speech fluency, laryngeal activity and the timing of speech movements. He dreams of bird watching and hiking in Arizona and California.
Doug Cross, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is an Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He received his Ph.D. in Speech Science/Speech Pathology from the University of Tennessee in 1978. His primary professional interests are in fluency and fluency disorders with emphasis on the neuropsychology of human performance and treatment of stuttering. Dr. Cross' stuttering treatment program, A Systems Approach to Stuttering Treatment (SAST) integrates fluid movement, emotion, thought, and the psychology of performance in shaping effective communication. Present activities include (1) continuum-based scaling methods for assessing communication fluidity and communication naturalness, and (2) developing computer generated animation programs that facilitate understanding and shaping of fluid movement and communication pace.
Vikram N. Dayalu, Ph.D. recently received his doctoral degree from East Carolina University. He is on the faculty at the Department of Speech Language Pathology and Audiology, Seton Hall University. His current research is focused on studying the role of sensory motor integration during speech production in people who stutter and other neurological populations.
Dennis Drayna, serves as Acting Section Chief at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, at the National Institutes of Health. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin and his PhD from Harvard University, and he served a postdoctoral fellowship at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Utah. His research focuses on the genetics of human communication disorders, including stuttering.
Peter Howell, is Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University College London, England. He has a long-standing interest in research into diagnosis and treatment of stuttering. He has recently established the journal 'Stammering Research'. This is an on-line publication that offers access to various forms of data, software and other facilities for research into stuttering. You can access the journal free through the pages of Stammering Research (visit http://www.speech.psychol.ucl.ac.uk). His recent research interests involve phonological analyses of children's speech to establish how early nonfluency arises."
Nathan E, Lavid, M.D. is psychiatrist in private practice in Southern California. He received his bachelor of arts in microbiology and subsequently his medical degree from the University of Kansas. He completed his internship and psychiatric residency at the University of California, Irvine. He is a former faculty member at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, where he completed a forensic psychiatry fellowship at the Institute of Psychiatry and Law. He has been involved in a wide range of neuroscience research, including the first clinical trial of olanzapine for stuttering.
Richard Mallard is Professor in the Department of Communication Disorders at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. His bachelor's and master's degrees are from the University of North Texas and his Ph.D. is from Purdue University. Dr. Mallard is a Fellow of ASHA and holds Specialty Recognition in Fluency Disorders from the Clinical Specialty Board of ASHA. Dr. Mallard has conducted intensive stuttering programs for children and adults since 1976 and currently works with families of children who stutter in intensive, non-intensive, and email/Internet formats in both university and private practice settings.
Larry Molt is chair of the Department of Communication Disorders and the director of the Neuroprocesses Research Laboratory at Auburn University. He holds a dual masters degree in speech-language pathology and audiology from the University of South Florida and Ph.D. in speech and hearing science from the University of Tennessee. Larry is an ASHA Board-Recognized Fluency Specialist. Larry was named 2003 Speech-Language Pathologist of the Year by the National Stuttering Association. His current research involves EEG topographic mapping of brain activity in a variety of speech, language and auditory disorders, with a prominent interest in stuttering.
Ann Packman is Senior Research Officer at the Australian Stuttering Research Centre, at The University of Sydney. Ann enjoys working with people who stutter, and she conducts research into all aspects of stuttering, including the development of new treatments. She has published over forty articles on stuttering in peer-reviewed journals and has presented widely at international conferences. Ann has edited two books on treatment for stuttering in young children and is co-author on a book on theories of stuttering which will be published later this year.
Nan Bernstein Ratner, Ed.D., CCC-SLP, is Professor and Chairman, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland at College Park. She holds degrees in Child Development, Speech-Language Pathology and Applied Psycholinguistics and is the editor of six volumes, and the author of more than 30 articles and 20 chapters addressing stuttering and language acquisition in children. She currently serves as Co-editor of Seminars in Speech and Language. Dr. Ratner is an ASHA Fellow and a Board-recognized Specialist for Fluency and Child Language
William S. Rosenthal, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus from the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders at Cal State East Bay, is "mostly retired from the University." He has a Ph.D. in Speech and Hearing Sciences and Psychology and is a member of the American Psychological Association, Division 29, Psychotherapy, and a member of the International Transactional Analysis Association. He has taught a graduate-level seminar in Counseling and Psychotherapy for Speech-Language Pathologists, as well as courses in fluency disorders..
Glen Tellis, is an Associate Professor of Speech-Language Pathology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and is an ASHA Board-Recognized Fluency Specialty and Mentor. He received his Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University. His interests in fluency disorders include treatment efficacy research, advanced digital technology for assessment and treatment, multicultural research, and clinical outcomes. He teaches courses in fluency disorders, supervises fluency clinics, has presented papers at numerous national and international conferences, and has published articles that pertain to stuttering and other fluency disorders. .
John A. Tetnowski, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is an Associate Professor and the Ben Blanco Memorial Endowed Professor in Communicative Disorders at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is a "Fluency Specialist" approved by ASHA's specialty commission on fluency disorders. He has treated people who stutter for over 15 years. .
John Van Borsel is a neurolinguist who obtained an MA in Philology from at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1981 and received a Ph.D. in neurolinguistics from the Free University of Brussels in 1993. He is currently professor of logopaedics and neurolinguistics at the Ghent University and scientific fellow at the Ghent University Hospital. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Fluency Disorders, and a member of the International Fluency Association, the International Association of Logopaedics and Phoniatrics, and the Society for the Study of Behavioral Phenotypes. He published in several professional journals and is also author of a number of books. His main research interests include acquired stuttering, neurogenic speech disorders, speech and language in genetic syndromes, and voice in transsexuals .
Tom Weidig is Vice-Chair of the research committee of the British Stammering Association and was a trustee before. Tom is mostly interested in meta-analysis, but recently co-wrote two research articles on the long-term outcome of a fluency shaping therapy. He holds a Master's in Theoretical Physics from Imperial College London, and a PhD from the University of Durham. He was a researcher at the University of Manchester and the University of Cambridge. Leaving physics research behind, he since worked as a risk analyst at an investment bank in London. Tom has now his own consultancy, and recently wrote a book on private equity and venture capital fund investments. He has a blog (webdiary) on research into stuttering: http://thestutteringbrain.blogspot.com.

You can post Questions/comments to any or all of these researchers before October 22, 2005.


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