Sharon will review research that informs us about what school-aged children and parents hope to gain through therapy and consider the implications for therapy.  She will discuss Solution Focused Brief Therapy as an approach to exploring hopes and expectations so that we can work together towards goals and outcomes that are relevant and meaningful to individual clients.  While the focus will be on school-aged children who stutter, the principles of working will be relevant for other ages and client groups.

Learning Objectives:
Participants will:
1.     Be able to describe the range of outcomes that children and parents want to gain from therapy
2.     Understand the importance of finding out an individual’s hopes and expectations 
3.     Be able to describe one way of exploring individual priorities
4.     Be able to explain the rationale for a holistic and individualized approach to therapy

Target Audience: Speech-Language Pathologists, Graduate Students

Bio: Sharon Millard, Ph.D., RegHCPC, MRCSLT is the Research Lead at the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering in London.  Sharon is the author of the Palin Parent Rating Scales and her most recent research has focused on therapy with school-aged children and the role of temperament in stuttering.  She is a European Stuttering Specialist, Co-Chair of the Oxford Stuttering and Cluttering Research Conference and member of the Journal of Fluency Disorders editorial team.