Happy new year!

 A very special year sees its final days. 

The EST teams wishes all of you and your families a happy new year, may 2021 be the year where we can celebrate to see each other again in real live, both private and professional.

Stay safe!

Picture by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

Throwback: Open seminar on “Individualization of stuttering treatment”, March 3rd 2020.

 

One of the more recent posts in Norwegian here on the blog was about Hilda Sønsterud’s Ph.D. project titled “What works for whom”. Way back in March we planned to make a post on an open seminar that was hosted by the Departement of Psychology and the Department of Special Needs Education at the University of Oslo in conjunction with the public defense for Dr. Sønsterud’s doctoral dissertation. The members of the scientific committee were invited to present their own research under the heading “Individualization of stuttering treatment” to a wider audience of speech language pathologists, students and other clinicians interested in stuttering. 

The topic of the seminar is still highly relevant, and we decided that it was about time to pull this text out of the file archive.

Dr. Marie-Christine Franken

The first presenter was Clinical researcher Dr. Marie-Christine Franken. The title of her talk was “The long-term outcomes of the RESTART trial”. Dr. Franken started out by talking about the design of the randomized comparative study.18 months post treatment the researchers found comparable effects of the Lidcombe program (LP) and the RESTART Demands and Capacities Model based treatment (DCM) for preschool children who stutter. Results from the trial have been published and are available here. Dr. Franken went on to share some of the preliminary data 5 years post treatment. These outcomes are based on self-reports of stuttering severity from children (N=100) and parents (N=127), as well as ratings of satisfaction with communication in everyday speaking situations from both groups. Analysis were still being carried out and did not include evaluations of speech samples by the researchers at the time. The preliminary results suggested, however, that the outcomes between LP and DCM are still comparable at 5 years post treatment. Fortunately, we can look forward to future publications on long term effects from the research group.

Professor Glen Tellis

Next presenter was Professor Glen Tellis who gave a talk on the topic “Fluency therapy ideas for 21st century clinicians. Apps, Social Networking, and Teletherapy”, based on his own and his former Ph.D-student Erik X. Raj’s work. With illustrative videos from teletherapy, Dr. Tellis showed how different apps that provide us with pictures, audio, memes and emojis can be incorporated into more traditional stuttering therapy for school aged children. He gave strong arguments for using humor and to make use of platforms that children enjoy, when working with affective, behavioral and cognitive components of stuttering. How do you imagine you would feel if you met an alien version of yourself on the street? Would you be nervous, or scared maybe? Together you can explore if there are other situations where you have felt nervous, scared etc. Maybe you can remember a situation where stuttering has made you feel like this? Moreover, consider that the alien comes from a planet where everyone stutters. What would his talking sound like, and what symbols would they have for different stuttering types, like blocks and repetitions on this planet? These are just a few of the creative suggestions for activities Dr. Tellis shared and where visual and audio material play a key role. Norwegian readers can also find some tips and information on this topic at Statped.no here.  

Finally, Dr. Hilda Sønsterud reflected upon the topic “Individualized stuttering therapy - what matters the most”. She highlighted the need for, and importance of, clinical research on stuttering therapy for adults that lead to personally significant changes for the participants. The core focus of Hilda’s Multimodal stuttering therapy (MIST) has been “minding the body in speech”. Participants have been practicing one or a few, strategies they have found helpful in clinic outside the therapy room. Strategies have been tailored to meet individual needs. 

From the right: Dr. Hilda Sønsterud and organizer of the seminar, Melanie Kirmess

We thank all presenters for their time and contribution to make this seminar a success.

For the EST-team, Ane Hestmann Melle

Forskningsformidling til barn

 

Jobber du som logoped, lærer, eller er forelder til et barn som stammer? Eller er du kanskje selv et barn som stammer? Stipendiat i EST prosjektet, Åse Sjøstrand er denne uken intervjuet av Ung.forskning.no om sin forskning. Les intervjuet her!

På ung.forskning.no formidles ny forskning til barn på en forståelig måte. Her kan barn lese forskerportretter og lære om alt fra forskning på klima og mikroplast, til medisin og koronavirus. Å formidle forskning til barn er en strålende øvelse. Det krever et klart språk, og gir en tydelig pekepinn på om vi selv vet hva vi driver med.

Leter du etter informasjon om stamming rettet mot voksne? Post doc i Est-prosjektet snakker om stamming på podcasten BBC Crowd Science. Les om episoden og finn lenke til den, i dette blogginnlegget.

 

A warm welcome to our Swedish collaborators

 

Since spring 2020 Sweden, represented by three researchers, has joined the EST-project. Main Swedish coordinator is Tove Lagerberg, assistant professor with a position as coordinator of the Speech and Language Pathology program at Gothenburg University https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/tovelagerberg, Ineke Samson, doctoral student and SLP, Karolinska Institute and Danderyd Hospital https://medarbetare.ki.se/people/inesam  and Anita McAllister, associate professor and SLP, Karolinska Institute and Karolinska University Hospital https://medarbetare.ki.se/people/anitmc .

So who are we? We are all SLP’s with extensive expertise in different speech and language disorders primarily within children and teenagers. 

Tove Lagerberg has clinical experience and research experience concerning fluency disorders and intelligibility assessment. She has been coordinator of specialist medical care for children and adults who stutter (Intensive Stuttering Therapy). Tove has also been a member of international networks such as European Clinical Specialization in Fluency Disorders (ECSF) and Stuttering Research and education network (STUREN). 

Ineke Samson, is recognized as a specialist in accordance with criteria developed by the ECSF and has clinical experience from almost twenty years in the field of fluency disorders. She also has an ongoing teaching assignment at the Study program in Speech and Language Pathology at Karolinska Institute, responsible for the content and structure of theory, practice and assessment of fluency disorders. 

Anita McAllister has extensive clinical and research experience by supervising doctoral students, leading and participating in research and by clinical patient work. She started and coordinated a multi-professional specialist clinic for patients with oral motor and speech motor disorders. 

 

In addition to the expertise within the field of stuttering, the Swedish researchers contribute knowledge within intelligibility and oral motor and speech motor disorders. By joining the project also Swedish children with stuttering will be included in the up-coming clinical trial. Children will be recruited from different clinics in the larger Stockholm and Gothenburg area. 

We are very excited to be part of this clinically important and valuable project and recognize the important work that has been done to date by the researcher’s in the EST-project. The results from the clinical trial will be looked forward to by many clinicians within the field with great expectations.

The EST team warmly welcomes our Swedish colleagues.