TITLE: Findings & Clinical Implications of a Global Collaborative to Understand Negative Public Attitudes Toward Stuttering

For more than two decades, Ken St. Louis has sought to better understand and then to ameliorate negative public stereotypes and public stigma related to stuttering (and other human conditions) in the International Project on Attitudes Toward Human Attributes (IPATHA). Using his Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes–Stuttering (POSHA–S), the first standard measure of explicit stuttering attitudes, Ken has collaborated with colleagues from nearly 50 countries with translations of the POSHA–S into 30 languages. The work has expanded to include the development of stuttering attitudes in young children as well as attitudes toward cluttering, obesity, and mental illness. Ken will share findings of cultural, vocational, and national similarities and differences in stuttering attitudes, attitude development, and improving public attitudes. He will then present concrete ways in which these findings can be applied to clinical treatment of stuttering.

Target Audience: Clinical Speech-Language Pathologists, Researchers, Undergraduate and Graduate Students, Teachers

Bio: Ken St. Louis, Ph.D., a mostly recovered stutterer, is an Emeritus Professor of speech-language pathology at West Virginia University (WVU). St. Louis taught and treated fluency disorders for 45 years. His research has culminated in more than 200 publications and 425 presentations. Ken’s awards include Lifetime Achievement (IFA), Fellow (ASHA), Excellence in Cluttering (ICA), Scholarship (WVU), and Public (clinical) Service (WVU). He founded the International Project of Attitudes Toward Human Attributes and has collaborated with more than 300 colleagues internationally on measuring public attitudes toward stuttering. He has also presented and published widely on cluttering.