Around the world: The One World, Many Voices Congress

Fall is approaching and we are about to embark on another busy semester. Our team have spent the summer travelling to different corners of the world! Elaina who is normally based in Melbourne has arrived in Oslo and will be based here for 3 months, and Hilde who is normally based in Sogndal, Norway will be working in London! Our PhD student, Åse also spent some of her summer travelling. She ventured to Japan to attend the International Fluency Association conference. Here she shares some of her thoughts from her time in Japan:

This summer I was lucky enough to attend the joint world congress on fluency disorders held from 13 to 16 July in Hiroshima, Japan. This congress was hosted by The International Fluency Association (IFA) which is an international nonprofit organization for speech and language therapists and other professionals working with people who have fluency disorders. Since 1994, IFA has hosted a triennial conference that provides an international platform for researchers to present their latest fluency research. In recent years, other fluency-focused organizations have co-hosted the conference with IFA. This year's conference was a collaboration between IFA, The International Cluttering Association (ICA), The International Stuttering Association (ISA), Japan Society of Stuttering and Fluency Disorders and Japan Stuttering Genyukai Organization. In total, more than 600 people from over 30 countries participated at the conference.

 

There are so many benefits to attending conferences. They are a great way of meeting other people with the same field of interest, learning about the latest research innovations and getting inspired and motivated to further develop your own research! Conferences are a place for discussion, for learning and for gaining new perspectives - this conference was no exception - researchers, clinicians and people with fluency disorders all contributed to the conference program presenting their latest research findings and insights. Recently, the IFA established a PhD forum for doctoral students within the field of stuttering research and the congress in Hiroshima provided the setting for the first meeting. I enjoyed contributing to the group discussions and felt fortunate to be a part of a community of people who are all conducted fluency research. Together, we had the chance to share our PhD experiences, learn more about this field of research and the expectations of our international peers and colleagues. You can learn more about the forum and listen to four PhD students discussing their stuttering research on this episode of the podcast Stuttertalk.

 

The IFA conference covers a wide range of topics. Given the treatment focus of the EST project, I was especially eager to hear other researchers talk about preschool children who stutter. In his presentation Early Childhood Stuttering Therapy: Indirect or Direct? Both or Neither? Dr Yaruss highlighted some important considerations about indirect and direct stuttering treatment approaches for preschool children. He reviewed the terms ‘indirect treatment’, ‘direct treatment’ and ‘operant conditioning’ by exploring the original definitions of these concepts and comparing them to our current understanding of them. He discussed the similarities and differences between these approaches and also discussed the possibility that individual children may be better suited to particular treatment approaches. In light of this comment he proposed a decision-making process clinicians should use when deciding what treatment to offer individual children.

Another presentation that was of particular interest to me was Dr Frankens presentation of preliminary long-term outcomes of the RESTART Trial comparing the Lidcombe Program and RESTART-DCM Based Treatment. She reported preliminary long term outcomes on measures including children’s self-report quality of life data and parent and teacher ratings. These measures were collected 5-8 years after the 18-month post randomization assessments. Dr Franken is in the process of preparing these findings for publication so unfortunately I can’t discuss them here but I can tell you they were really interesting!

Four extensive days of lectures and discussions have inspired and motivated me to focus on the work the EST project will be doing this fall and after two weeks traveling through Japan following the congress I think I am ready to get started!

All photos included in the post were taken by the Joint World Congress photographers and shared with permission.

The EST-project turns 1-year old!

This month the EST-project turned 1-year old and what a year it’s been! Birthdays are always a time for reflection so we thought we’d use our first birthday to reflect on our key achievements and set some goals for the year ahead! 

The first year of the EST-project has involved lots and lots of planning but we have also managed to achieve some big successes along the way as well! The biggest highlights from the past 12 months have been receiving approvals from Cochrane and Prospero to conduct systematic reviews about stuttering interventions! You can read more about each of these reviews in previous posts on our blog here and here. Since receiving those approvals we have been learning how to use new software programs and digital tools, developing the protocol for the Cochrane review and have recently started our literature search for the Prospero review! 

We have also spent a lot of time developing ways to communicate with you! We launched our blog so that we can provide you with regular updates on the EST-project. We have also developed a website for the project in Norwegian and English which you will find here. Finally, we have been working closely with a creative designer to develop an animation that will be used to explain our study to families, researchers and clinicians around the world and to recruit families to our study! The animation is almost ready and will be released over the next few weeks. We can’t wait to share it with all of you!

The final highlight we wanted to share with you is starting to prepare for our randomized controlled trial (RCT). The RCT will commence early in 2019 so we have been having extensive discussions at team meetings, reviewing previous RCT methodologies and planning all of the components that are required for a project of this size to be successful!  

As you can see it has been a huge year for us. We wouldn’t have been able to achieve any of this as quickly as we have without the expertise and contributions from members of our ever-expanding team! Over the past 12 months, our team has expanded from 3 original investigators to a team of 9 researchers including a PhD student and a postdoctoral student! And then of course we have also established our advisory committee and working relationships with key stakeholders around Norway. 

The next 12 months is shaping up to be just as busy if not busier than our first year was! In just 2 weeks, our team will be meeting in Denmark for a writing retreat to work intensively on the Cochrane and Prospero reviews and continuing planning the RCT in detail. One of our chief investigators, Elaina Kefalianos, will be travelling to Norway (all the way from Australia!) to spend 3 months with the rest of the team at the University of Oslo from August to November working on the EST-project. We are really looking forward to spending this time with her and having discussions face to face again!

In January 2019, we will start recruiting participants for the RCT and start the trial! Before then, we have a lot of work to do planning the recruitment process, choosing the treatments that we are going to use in the RCT, and making sure that our speech language pathologists are comprehensively trained in the treatments we are going to be using.

The first year of the EST-project has been incredibly busy but also a lot of fun! We are all so proud to be part of this amazing study and are really looking forward to sharing more with you over the coming year! 

From the EST-project team

Collaboration – a crucial component of the EST-project!

As we have mentioned previously, the EST-project is a five-year project comprised of 3 work packages. The first work package is a meta-analysis of existing stuttering treatment studies. We will use the results of this analysis to identify the two treatment approaches that will be examined in work package 2. The second work package is a 3-armed randomized controlled trial which will identify the best available management approach for Norwegian preschool children who stutter. The third work package is the implementation phase of the project. In this final work package, we will implement the best evidence-based management approach with health and education professionals involved in management of preschool children who stutter.

Given the size and scope of our project, strong international collaboration is essential. The EST-project involves collaboration between multiple partners including The Research Council of Norway, universities in Norway, England, Australia and America, stuttering interest groups, and Norwegian municipalities. 

Dr Elaina Kefalianos, Lead of Teaching for the Master of Speech Pathology at The University of Melbourne in Australia, is one of the chief investigators on the EST-project. Recently, The University of Melbourne announced its collaboration with The University of Oslo and the EST-project by publishing an article on its website. You can view the announcement here.

Despite living on the other side of the world, Australian speech-language pathologists, health and education professionals, and families of children who stutter are keenly following the EST-project and its latest developments through our blog!

There are so many exciting milestones planned for the EST-project over the coming months. If you would like to receive regular updates on the project, follow our blog so that we can provide you with the latest developments as they happen! And of course, feel free to share our blog posts with colleagues, friends and family within the stuttering community!

More soon, the EST-project team!