Speechagain Hosts Live Chat with ASHA

Speechagain was honored to host a Live Chat event with ASHA, discussing all things stuttering, as well as the Speechagain program.

Speech Pathologists recently made a quick transition from treating stuttering in-person, to now virtual. Managing this abrupt change can be challenging. Some questions SLPs had were: Where do you find new online speech resources? How can you continue empowering your stuttering clients? What challenges and successes have you found?

During the Live Chat, the panelists discussed the foundation of treating stuttering and the research to support these methods. This included a study of face to face vs online treatment (Wolff von Gudenberg & Euler, 2016) that found no difference in efficacy for either modality. The panelists and attendees problem solved any challenges that SLPs may have been encountering. Attending SLPs built actionable strategies to realize the full potential of children and adults who stutter.

Panelists included:

  • Alexander Wolff von Gudenberg, PhD, Director of PARLO Research Institute
  • Mallory Stempfley, MA, CCC-SLP, Chief of Speech-Language Pathology, Speechagain
  • Michael Blomgren, PhD, CCC-SLP, ASHA-F, Department Chair, University of Utah

Keep reading below for a sneak peek of the chat:

Question 1: What resources would you recommend as “must haves” when working with preschool clients who stutter? Thank You!

Answer: Great question! Speechagain is mainly for adults/young adults, but a children’s program is in the works! I would recommend researching on ASHA and looking to the National Stuttering Association for information. With my experience working with elementary-aged, education was key! We used a lot of technology to provide voice recordings for the client to increase their awareness and hear the “before” and “after”. Also, of course, visuals! Anything that allows them to visualize easing into the word, such as a slide, a train slowly going around a track, moving their finger along a rainbow image, etc.

The main resources for working with children are knowledge about the various approaches. I review the two primary approaches for preschool children: multifactorial treatments and the operant conditioning approaches (e.g., Lidcombe) in a paper I’ve linked below: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240306868_Behavioral_treatments_for_children_and_adults_who_stutter_A_review
Zoom (and its cousins) will be with us forever moving forward. While many of us are “zoom’d out” these days, it really can be a wonderful tool to keep up with parents of preschool and school-aged children who stutter.

Question 2: Question 2: How has COVID impacted speechagain clients? How have you helped them through this difficult time?

Answer: COVID has been interesting for Speechagain. As we were already a digital tool, ourselves and our clients really didn’t need to adapt to anything different. Of course, the impact was felt emotionally though, and possibly even financially. We worked with a lot of our clients to support them in any way that we could. Our team has a great customer service team that even just chats with users when they need a little motivation or support. As a Speechagain family, we all feel connected and supported during this time!

Question 3: How do you deal with multiple SLPs using this on the same client? Should everyone have their own account?

Answer: Mainly all of our users are assigned to just one SLP, and vice versa. We haven’t come across the situation of multiple SLPs sharing one client, but if this were the case I would recommend sharing a Speechagain SLP account. That way the client is only linked to one SLP account and you only have to look to one spot for all the data and information. The account could be created as an institution, such as your practice name, as opposed to using your individual information. Hope that makes sense!

A full transcript of the chat can be found here. 

Big thank you to ASHA for partnering with us!

Roundtable Community Event

We were incredibly proud to host our next roundtable discussion for any and every member of our community, including people who stutter, SLPs who care about us, and our friends & family.

What was the discussion about? Our listeners and viewers had the chance to learn from people who have had profound experiences in this community. Very importantly, we had the chance to learn from you too! A roundtable discussion means that anyone and everyone have the opportunity to speak. Or not, that’s always completely up to you.

Fantastic people who stutter lead our discussions. A bit about our discussion leaders:

The first speaker, Noah Waters is a person who stutters and future SLP. He’s currently earning his degree from the University of Kentucky and has years of experience with SAY (Stuttering Association for the Young) as both a camper and counselor.

Our second speaker, Kitch, is a rapper and person who stutters from East London. His advocacy in the stuttering community has inspired students and shown the world that speech impediments do not define who you are. Through his music, he has found the confidence to achieve his goals and conquer his fears.

Both speakers will be sharing their own personal stories and offering unique insights that are valuable to both people who stutter and speech-language pathologists.

It’s incredible building up our community together and we plan to have many more events like this one in the future.

For information on upcoming events, please email us at info@speechagain.com

Roundtable Discussion Community Event

We were incredibly proud to host a roundtable discussion for any and every member of our community, including people who stutter, SLPs who care about us, and our friends & family.

What was the discussion about? Our listeners and viewers had the chance to learn from people who have had profound experiences in this community. Very importantly, we had the chance to learn from you too! A roundtable discussion means that anyone and everyone have the opportunity to speak. Or not, that’s always completely up to you.

Fantastic people who stutter lead our discussions. A bit about our discussion leaders:

Michael Blomgren is the Department Chair at the University of Utah. He’s researched, published and been a tremendous advocate for people who stutter. He established an intensive clinic at his University. In this discussion, he shared what he’s learned over the years about the outcomes and changes that have occurred during his involvement with this intensive program.

Stephen Groner is a charismatic, engaging SLP and PWS. He’s the creator of a thoughtful, comprehensive guide for SLPs treating People who stutter. In this discussion, Stephen shared his personal story and evolution as a person who stutters. It’s incredibly fascinating and insightful – check out his Instagram page for more details!

Both Michael and Stephen then opened up the discussion to your questions, comments, and reflections.

It’s incredible building up our community together and we plan to have many more events like this one in the future.

For information on upcoming events, please email us at info@speechagain.com

2019 ASHA Convention

Four members of our Speechagain team, including our General Manager, CEO, and Speech-Language Pathologist, will be hosting our booth at the 2019 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention. We are very excited to be attending an incredibly inspiring event, meeting and collaborating with speech-language pathologists from all over the nation. The ASHA Convention is an annual professional education event for speech-language pathologists, audiologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists. This event hosts an average of 15,000 attendees, all sharing their latest research, skills, and tips for all thing’s speech and language.

We will be hosting different interactive activities for our SLP friends throughout the weekend, so stay tuned for updates on our website, as well as Instagram and Twitter.

Click here to learn more about this incredible event: https://convention.asha.org/