Marilyn Langevin - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Marilyn Langevin

Research paper thumbnail of Teleparticipation in a Group Stuttering Treatment Program: Perspectives of Clients and Student Speech-Language Pathologists

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2015

Background and Purpose: Telepractice is now a common method for delivering stuttering treatment. ... more Background and Purpose: Telepractice is now a common method for delivering stuttering treatment. To date reports of telepractice used in treating adults who stutter have focused on treatment provided to individuals (e.g., O'Brian et al., 2008; Carey et al., 2010) in individual treatment programs. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of adults who stutter and student speech-language pathologists who participated in a 3 week intensive stuttering treatment program in which one client participated through telepractice. This report focuses on the comparison of off-site to on-site experiences of all participants. Method: Participants were Sarah who participated through telepractice in the acquisition phase of the Comprehensive Stuttering Program (CSP) program, her three fellow on-site adult clients (2 males and 1 female), and 2 student speech-language pathologists. In telepractice sessions, Jackie participated in group fluency skill practice sessions, group discussions that address the attitudinal and emotional consequences of stuttering, and less structured group conversations with fellow clients. Qualitative data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with clients and student trainees at the end of the treatment program. Results: Jackie found the on-site delivered therapy superior to telepractice delivered therapy; however, she was surprised that the telepractice delivered therapy worked as well as it did. Fellow clients also thought that the inperson interaction was superior, but, in agreement with Jackie and student trainees, thought that telepractice therapy was "better than no therapy at all". Based on challenges in the telepractice delivered treatment, all participants provided recommendations for future use of telepractice in a group therapy and clinical education programs. Themes will be detailed in the poster. Discussion: Themes and recommendations provide new information about telepractice in group treatment programs from the perspective of clients and new information about clinical education in telepractice delivered stuttering treatment from the perspective of student trainees.

Research paper thumbnail of Teleparticipation in a Group Stuttering Treatment Program: Perspectives of Clients and Student Speech-Language Pathologists

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Jun 1, 2015

Background and Purpose: Telepractice is now a common method for delivering stuttering treatment. ... more Background and Purpose: Telepractice is now a common method for delivering stuttering treatment. To date reports of telepractice used in treating adults who stutter have focused on treatment provided to individuals (e.g., O'Brian et al., 2008; Carey et al., 2010) in individual treatment programs. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of adults who stutter and student speech-language pathologists who participated in a 3 week intensive stuttering treatment program in which one client participated through telepractice. This report focuses on the comparison of off-site to on-site experiences of all participants. Method: Participants were Sarah who participated through telepractice in the acquisition phase of the Comprehensive Stuttering Program (CSP) program, her three fellow on-site adult clients (2 males and 1 female), and 2 student speech-language pathologists. In telepractice sessions, Jackie participated in group fluency skill practice sessions, group discussions that address the attitudinal and emotional consequences of stuttering, and less structured group conversations with fellow clients. Qualitative data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with clients and student trainees at the end of the treatment program. Results: Jackie found the on-site delivered therapy superior to telepractice delivered therapy; however, she was surprised that the telepractice delivered therapy worked as well as it did. Fellow clients also thought that the inperson interaction was superior, but, in agreement with Jackie and student trainees, thought that telepractice therapy was "better than no therapy at all". Based on challenges in the telepractice delivered treatment, all participants provided recommendations for future use of telepractice in a group therapy and clinical education programs. Themes will be detailed in the poster. Discussion: Themes and recommendations provide new information about telepractice in group treatment programs from the perspective of clients and new information about clinical education in telepractice delivered stuttering treatment from the perspective of student trainees.

Research paper thumbnail of Measuring Parent Inferred Self-Concept of Preschoolers: Factor Structure of a New Scale

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2015

Purpose: Parents often report that stuttering affects their preschooler's self-esteem and self-co... more Purpose: Parents often report that stuttering affects their preschooler's self-esteem and self-confidence, constructs that are subsumed under the overarching construct of self-concept. With a view to measuring self-concept before and after therapy with the least study burden on families, this study developed a parent version of the Self-Description Questionnaire for Preschoolers (SDQP) (Marsh et al., 2002). This report focuses on the construct validity of the scale with the addition of two new items. Method: Participants were 104 parents of preschoolers (3;0 to 5;11) who were typically fluent. Items on the preschooler's version of the SDQP were converted to measure parent inferred self-concept and two items were added that measured a fear dimension that had not been included in the SDQP. The factor structure of the parent scale was analyzed using an exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation. Results: A six factor structure with three factors that were consistent with earlier research (physical abilities, physical appearance, and peer relationships) and three new factors (child-and parent initiated parent relationship factors, and pre-academic skills) emerged. The Fear items loaded most strongly on the Child-initiated Parent Relationship factor but in a negative direction (-.637). The model accounted for 65% of the total variance compared to 66% when the fear items were excluded. Discussion: Results indicate that the Fear items did not represent a unique dimension but instead measured the construct underlying the Child-initiated Parent Relationship factor. This study is unique in its development of a parent inferred measure of preschooler's self-concept and in the addition of Fear items to the SDQP. The Fear items fit with the Shavelson et al. (1976) model of self-concept upon which the SDQP was based, represent a particular emotional state that was not previously included in the SDQP, and enhance the content validity of the scale.

Research paper thumbnail of Working with Families in Speech-Language Pathology

Working with families in speech-language pathology / , Working with families in speech-language p... more Working with families in speech-language pathology / , Working with families in speech-language pathology / , کتابخانه دیجیتال جندی شاپور اهواز

Research paper thumbnail of Applying critical realistic evaluation methods to speech-language pathology

Research paper thumbnail of The KiddyCAT: Communication Attitude Test for Preschoolers and Kindergartners

Unpublished manuscript, 2004

Research paper thumbnail of Five-year longitudinal treatment outcomes of the ISTAR Comprehensive Stuttering Program

Journal of Fluency Disorders, 2010

Replicated evidence of satisfactory 1-and 2-year post-treatment outcomes has been reported for th... more Replicated evidence of satisfactory 1-and 2-year post-treatment outcomes has been reported for the Comprehensive Stuttering Program (CSP). However, little is known about longer term outcomes of the CSP. Yearly follow-up measures were obtained from 18 participants for 5 consecutive years. At 5-year follow-up, participants were maintaining clinically and statistically significant reductions in stuttering and increases in rates of speech relative to pre-treatment measures. Standardized effect sizes were large. There were no significant differences among the immediate post-treatment and five follow-up measures, indicating that speech gains achieved by the end of the treatment program were stable over the 5-year follow-up period. Insufficient return rates for self-report data for the third to fifth follow-up measurement occasions prohibited analyzing these data. However, non-significant differences among the immediate post-treatment and two follow-up measures indicated that improvements achieved by the end of treatment in speech-related confidence, and perceptions of struggle, avoidance, and expectancy to stutter were stable over the 2-year follow-up period. Significant differences among the speech-related communication attitudes scores indicated that improvements in attitudes made at the end of the treatment program were less stable. Taken together, these results provide further and longer term evidence of the effectiveness of the CSP. Educational objectives: Readers will be able to: (1) describe the main components of the Comprehensive Stuttering Program (2) describe a methodology for determining clinically meaningful maintenance of stuttering reductions, and (3) describe the durability and stability of improvements in speech and self-report measures across time.

Research paper thumbnail of Post-treatment speech naturalness of Comprehensive Stuttering Program clients and differences in ratings among listener groups

Journal of Fluency Disorders, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of The relationship between pre-treatment clinical profile and treatment outcome in an integrated stuttering program

Journal of Fluency Disorders, 2006

A procedure for subtyping individuals who stutter and its relationship to treatment outcome is ex... more A procedure for subtyping individuals who stutter and its relationship to treatment outcome is explored. Twenty-five adult participants of the Comprehensive Stuttering Program (CSP) were classified according to: (1) stuttering severity and (2) severity of negative emotions and cognitions associated with their speech problem. Speech characteristics (percentage of stuttered syllables, distorted speech score, and the number of correctly produced syllables on a diadochokinesis task) and emotional/cognitive states (emotional reaction, speech satisfaction, and attitudes toward speaking) were assessed before and after treatment, and at a 1and 2-year follow-up. The results showed that: (a) there was no relationship between stuttering severity and the severity of negative emotions and cognitions, (b) the severe stuttering group had the largest treatment gains but also the highest level of regression, and (c) at post-treatment and both follow-up assessments the differences on measures of emotions between the mild and severe emotional group had disappeared, chiefly due to a large decrease in the latter group's negative emotions and cognitions. Our findings show that, based on treatment gains, specific subgroups can be identified, each requiring different treatment approaches. This underlines the necessity of developing a better understanding of how various dimensions of stuttering relate to treatment outcome.

Research paper thumbnail of The Peer Attitudes Toward Children who Stutter (PATCS) scale: an evaluation of validity, reliability and the negativity of attitudes

International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 2009

Background: Persistent calls for school-based education about stuttering necessitate a better und... more Background: Persistent calls for school-based education about stuttering necessitate a better understanding of peer attitudes toward children who stutter and a means to measure outcomes of such educational interventions. Langevin and Hagler in 2004 developed the Peer Attitudes Toward Children who Stutter scale (PATCS) to address these needs and gave preliminary evidence of reliability and construct validity. Aims: To examine further the psychometric properties of PATCS and to examine the negativity of attitudes. Methods & Procedures: PATCS was administered to 760 Canadian children in grades 3-6. Measures included reliability, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), a known groups analysis, convergent validity with the Pro-Victim Scale of Rigby and Slee, and the negativity of attitudes. Outcomes & Results: PATCS appears to tap a second-order general attitude factor and three first-order factors representing the constructs of Positive Social Distance (PSD), Social Pressure (SP), and Verbal Interaction (VI). In the known groups analysis, participants who had contact with someone who stutters had higher scores (more positive attitudes) than those who had not, and girls had higher scores than boys. PATCS correlated moderately (0.43, p,0.01) with the Pro-Victim scale. Finally, one-fifth (21.7%) of participants had scores that were somewhat to very negative. Conclusions & Implications: Results provide evidence of the validity and reliability of PATCS and confirm the need for school-based education about stuttering.

Research paper thumbnail of Peer Responses to Stuttering in the Preschool Setting

American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 2009

Purpose This study investigated peer responses to preschoolers' stuttering in preschool and s... more Purpose This study investigated peer responses to preschoolers' stuttering in preschool and sought to determine whether specific characteristics of participants' stuttering patterns elicited negative peer responses. Method Four outdoor free-play sessions of 4 preschoolers age 3–4 years who stutter were videotaped. Stutters were identified on transcripts of the play sessions. Peer responses to stuttered utterances were judged to be negative or neutral/positive. Thereafter, participants' stuttering behaviors, durations of stutters, and judgments of the meaningfulness of peer-directed stuttered utterances were analyzed. Results Between 71.4% and 100% of peer responses were judged to be neutral/positive. In the negative responses across 3 participants, peers were observed to react with confusion or to interrupt, mock, walk away from, or ignore the stuttered utterances. Utterances that elicited negative responses were typically meaningless and contained stutters that were beh...

Research paper thumbnail of Results of an Intensive Stuttering Therapy Program 1 Resultats d ' un traitement intensif du begaiement

This paper reports the results of a three-week intensive program for 10 adult and adolescent stut... more This paper reports the results of a three-week intensive program for 10 adult and adolescent stutterers. Measurements were made immediately before and after treatment and again during the follow-up period, 12 14 months post-treatment. The measures included percentage of stuttering, syllables spoken per minute and three self-report scales designed to measure changes in attitudes. perceptions and self-confidence. In the follow-up period, subjects completed a fourth scale in which they indicated their level of satisfaction with their speech performance. The results indicated that substantial positive changes occurred and were maintained in both speech performance and non-speech variables.

Research paper thumbnail of Developing student teachers' understanding of stuttering through exposure to video recordings of people who stutter

Research paper thumbnail of Exploring the Viability of Exposure to Stories of Individuals who Stutter as a Learning Tool

Research paper thumbnail of tuttering treatment for a school-age child with Down syndrome : A escriptive case report

Background: Little is known about optimal treatment approaches and stuttering treatment outcomes ... more Background: Little is known about optimal treatment approaches and stuttering treatment outcomes for children with Down syndrome. Aims and method: The purpose of this study was to investigate outcomes for a child with Down syndrome who received a combination of fluency shaping therapy and parent delivered contingencies for normally fluent speech, prolonged speech, and stuttered speech. Results: In-clinic speech measures obtained at post-treatment and at 4 months followup reflected improvements in fluency of 89.0% and 98.6%, respectively. The participant’s beyond-clinic follow-up sample reflected an improvement of 95.5%. Following treatment, the participant demonstrated improved self-confidence, self-esteem, and improved participation and functioning at school. Conclusions: Findings suggest that fluency shaping with parental contingencies may be a viable treatment approach to reduce stuttering in children with Down syndrome. Future research using an experimental research design is wa...

Research paper thumbnail of Teasing/Bullying Experienced by Children Who Stutter: Toward Development of a Questionnaire

Contemporary Issues in Communication Science and Disorders

Research paper thumbnail of Evidence-Based Practice in Fluency Disorders

Research paper thumbnail of Exploring how preschoolers who stutter use spoken language during free play: A feasibility study

International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology

Play is critically important for the healthy development of children. This study explored the via... more Play is critically important for the healthy development of children. This study explored the viability of a methodology to investigate how preschoolers who stutter use language in play with peers. Transcripts of peer-directed utterances of four preschoolers who stutter and four matched non-stuttering children during free play were analysed for measures of verbal output (numbers of utterances and words), length and complexity of utterances (mean length of communication unit and syntactic complexity), and lexical diversity (number of different words, type token ratio and vocd). Viable speech samples were obtained. Verbal output scores of two children who stutter were the same or higher than their matched controls whereas mean length of communication unit and syntactic complexity scores for three children who stutter were lower than their matched controls. In 22 of the 24 comparisons across number of different words, type token ratio, and vocd, scores of children who stutter were the same or higher than their matched controls. Interpretation of data is limited by the small sample size and lack of standardised testing. However, results indicate that the methodology has promise for future research into the way preschoolers who stutter use spoken language during play and the quality of their play.

Research paper thumbnail of Evidence-based guidelines for being supportive of people who stutter in North America

Journal of Fluency Disorders

Research paper thumbnail of Using critical realistic evaluation to support translation of research into clinical practice

International journal of speech-language pathology, Jun 1, 2017

A challenge that speech-language pathologists (SLPs) face is the translation of research into cli... more A challenge that speech-language pathologists (SLPs) face is the translation of research into clinical practice. While randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are often touted as the "gold standard" of efficacy research, much valuable information is lost through the process; RCTs by nature are designed to wash out individual client factors and contexts that might influence the outcome in order to present the "true" impact of the intervention. However, in the area of behavioural interventions, the interaction of client factors and contexts with the treatment agent can substantially influence the outcome. This paper provides an overview of the theoretical background and methods involved in critical realistic evaluation (CRE) and discusses its current and potential application to speech-language pathology. CRE is based on the premise that a behavioural intervention cannot be evaluated without considering the context in which it was provided. While the ways in which cont...

Research paper thumbnail of Teleparticipation in a Group Stuttering Treatment Program: Perspectives of Clients and Student Speech-Language Pathologists

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2015

Background and Purpose: Telepractice is now a common method for delivering stuttering treatment. ... more Background and Purpose: Telepractice is now a common method for delivering stuttering treatment. To date reports of telepractice used in treating adults who stutter have focused on treatment provided to individuals (e.g., O'Brian et al., 2008; Carey et al., 2010) in individual treatment programs. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of adults who stutter and student speech-language pathologists who participated in a 3 week intensive stuttering treatment program in which one client participated through telepractice. This report focuses on the comparison of off-site to on-site experiences of all participants. Method: Participants were Sarah who participated through telepractice in the acquisition phase of the Comprehensive Stuttering Program (CSP) program, her three fellow on-site adult clients (2 males and 1 female), and 2 student speech-language pathologists. In telepractice sessions, Jackie participated in group fluency skill practice sessions, group discussions that address the attitudinal and emotional consequences of stuttering, and less structured group conversations with fellow clients. Qualitative data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with clients and student trainees at the end of the treatment program. Results: Jackie found the on-site delivered therapy superior to telepractice delivered therapy; however, she was surprised that the telepractice delivered therapy worked as well as it did. Fellow clients also thought that the inperson interaction was superior, but, in agreement with Jackie and student trainees, thought that telepractice therapy was "better than no therapy at all". Based on challenges in the telepractice delivered treatment, all participants provided recommendations for future use of telepractice in a group therapy and clinical education programs. Themes will be detailed in the poster. Discussion: Themes and recommendations provide new information about telepractice in group treatment programs from the perspective of clients and new information about clinical education in telepractice delivered stuttering treatment from the perspective of student trainees.

Research paper thumbnail of Teleparticipation in a Group Stuttering Treatment Program: Perspectives of Clients and Student Speech-Language Pathologists

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Jun 1, 2015

Background and Purpose: Telepractice is now a common method for delivering stuttering treatment. ... more Background and Purpose: Telepractice is now a common method for delivering stuttering treatment. To date reports of telepractice used in treating adults who stutter have focused on treatment provided to individuals (e.g., O'Brian et al., 2008; Carey et al., 2010) in individual treatment programs. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of adults who stutter and student speech-language pathologists who participated in a 3 week intensive stuttering treatment program in which one client participated through telepractice. This report focuses on the comparison of off-site to on-site experiences of all participants. Method: Participants were Sarah who participated through telepractice in the acquisition phase of the Comprehensive Stuttering Program (CSP) program, her three fellow on-site adult clients (2 males and 1 female), and 2 student speech-language pathologists. In telepractice sessions, Jackie participated in group fluency skill practice sessions, group discussions that address the attitudinal and emotional consequences of stuttering, and less structured group conversations with fellow clients. Qualitative data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with clients and student trainees at the end of the treatment program. Results: Jackie found the on-site delivered therapy superior to telepractice delivered therapy; however, she was surprised that the telepractice delivered therapy worked as well as it did. Fellow clients also thought that the inperson interaction was superior, but, in agreement with Jackie and student trainees, thought that telepractice therapy was "better than no therapy at all". Based on challenges in the telepractice delivered treatment, all participants provided recommendations for future use of telepractice in a group therapy and clinical education programs. Themes will be detailed in the poster. Discussion: Themes and recommendations provide new information about telepractice in group treatment programs from the perspective of clients and new information about clinical education in telepractice delivered stuttering treatment from the perspective of student trainees.

Research paper thumbnail of Measuring Parent Inferred Self-Concept of Preschoolers: Factor Structure of a New Scale

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2015

Purpose: Parents often report that stuttering affects their preschooler's self-esteem and self-co... more Purpose: Parents often report that stuttering affects their preschooler's self-esteem and self-confidence, constructs that are subsumed under the overarching construct of self-concept. With a view to measuring self-concept before and after therapy with the least study burden on families, this study developed a parent version of the Self-Description Questionnaire for Preschoolers (SDQP) (Marsh et al., 2002). This report focuses on the construct validity of the scale with the addition of two new items. Method: Participants were 104 parents of preschoolers (3;0 to 5;11) who were typically fluent. Items on the preschooler's version of the SDQP were converted to measure parent inferred self-concept and two items were added that measured a fear dimension that had not been included in the SDQP. The factor structure of the parent scale was analyzed using an exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation. Results: A six factor structure with three factors that were consistent with earlier research (physical abilities, physical appearance, and peer relationships) and three new factors (child-and parent initiated parent relationship factors, and pre-academic skills) emerged. The Fear items loaded most strongly on the Child-initiated Parent Relationship factor but in a negative direction (-.637). The model accounted for 65% of the total variance compared to 66% when the fear items were excluded. Discussion: Results indicate that the Fear items did not represent a unique dimension but instead measured the construct underlying the Child-initiated Parent Relationship factor. This study is unique in its development of a parent inferred measure of preschooler's self-concept and in the addition of Fear items to the SDQP. The Fear items fit with the Shavelson et al. (1976) model of self-concept upon which the SDQP was based, represent a particular emotional state that was not previously included in the SDQP, and enhance the content validity of the scale.

Research paper thumbnail of Working with Families in Speech-Language Pathology

Working with families in speech-language pathology / , Working with families in speech-language p... more Working with families in speech-language pathology / , Working with families in speech-language pathology / , کتابخانه دیجیتال جندی شاپور اهواز

Research paper thumbnail of Applying critical realistic evaluation methods to speech-language pathology

Research paper thumbnail of The KiddyCAT: Communication Attitude Test for Preschoolers and Kindergartners

Unpublished manuscript, 2004

Research paper thumbnail of Five-year longitudinal treatment outcomes of the ISTAR Comprehensive Stuttering Program

Journal of Fluency Disorders, 2010

Replicated evidence of satisfactory 1-and 2-year post-treatment outcomes has been reported for th... more Replicated evidence of satisfactory 1-and 2-year post-treatment outcomes has been reported for the Comprehensive Stuttering Program (CSP). However, little is known about longer term outcomes of the CSP. Yearly follow-up measures were obtained from 18 participants for 5 consecutive years. At 5-year follow-up, participants were maintaining clinically and statistically significant reductions in stuttering and increases in rates of speech relative to pre-treatment measures. Standardized effect sizes were large. There were no significant differences among the immediate post-treatment and five follow-up measures, indicating that speech gains achieved by the end of the treatment program were stable over the 5-year follow-up period. Insufficient return rates for self-report data for the third to fifth follow-up measurement occasions prohibited analyzing these data. However, non-significant differences among the immediate post-treatment and two follow-up measures indicated that improvements achieved by the end of treatment in speech-related confidence, and perceptions of struggle, avoidance, and expectancy to stutter were stable over the 2-year follow-up period. Significant differences among the speech-related communication attitudes scores indicated that improvements in attitudes made at the end of the treatment program were less stable. Taken together, these results provide further and longer term evidence of the effectiveness of the CSP. Educational objectives: Readers will be able to: (1) describe the main components of the Comprehensive Stuttering Program (2) describe a methodology for determining clinically meaningful maintenance of stuttering reductions, and (3) describe the durability and stability of improvements in speech and self-report measures across time.

Research paper thumbnail of Post-treatment speech naturalness of Comprehensive Stuttering Program clients and differences in ratings among listener groups

Journal of Fluency Disorders, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of The relationship between pre-treatment clinical profile and treatment outcome in an integrated stuttering program

Journal of Fluency Disorders, 2006

A procedure for subtyping individuals who stutter and its relationship to treatment outcome is ex... more A procedure for subtyping individuals who stutter and its relationship to treatment outcome is explored. Twenty-five adult participants of the Comprehensive Stuttering Program (CSP) were classified according to: (1) stuttering severity and (2) severity of negative emotions and cognitions associated with their speech problem. Speech characteristics (percentage of stuttered syllables, distorted speech score, and the number of correctly produced syllables on a diadochokinesis task) and emotional/cognitive states (emotional reaction, speech satisfaction, and attitudes toward speaking) were assessed before and after treatment, and at a 1and 2-year follow-up. The results showed that: (a) there was no relationship between stuttering severity and the severity of negative emotions and cognitions, (b) the severe stuttering group had the largest treatment gains but also the highest level of regression, and (c) at post-treatment and both follow-up assessments the differences on measures of emotions between the mild and severe emotional group had disappeared, chiefly due to a large decrease in the latter group's negative emotions and cognitions. Our findings show that, based on treatment gains, specific subgroups can be identified, each requiring different treatment approaches. This underlines the necessity of developing a better understanding of how various dimensions of stuttering relate to treatment outcome.

Research paper thumbnail of The Peer Attitudes Toward Children who Stutter (PATCS) scale: an evaluation of validity, reliability and the negativity of attitudes

International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 2009

Background: Persistent calls for school-based education about stuttering necessitate a better und... more Background: Persistent calls for school-based education about stuttering necessitate a better understanding of peer attitudes toward children who stutter and a means to measure outcomes of such educational interventions. Langevin and Hagler in 2004 developed the Peer Attitudes Toward Children who Stutter scale (PATCS) to address these needs and gave preliminary evidence of reliability and construct validity. Aims: To examine further the psychometric properties of PATCS and to examine the negativity of attitudes. Methods & Procedures: PATCS was administered to 760 Canadian children in grades 3-6. Measures included reliability, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), a known groups analysis, convergent validity with the Pro-Victim Scale of Rigby and Slee, and the negativity of attitudes. Outcomes & Results: PATCS appears to tap a second-order general attitude factor and three first-order factors representing the constructs of Positive Social Distance (PSD), Social Pressure (SP), and Verbal Interaction (VI). In the known groups analysis, participants who had contact with someone who stutters had higher scores (more positive attitudes) than those who had not, and girls had higher scores than boys. PATCS correlated moderately (0.43, p,0.01) with the Pro-Victim scale. Finally, one-fifth (21.7%) of participants had scores that were somewhat to very negative. Conclusions & Implications: Results provide evidence of the validity and reliability of PATCS and confirm the need for school-based education about stuttering.

Research paper thumbnail of Peer Responses to Stuttering in the Preschool Setting

American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 2009

Purpose This study investigated peer responses to preschoolers' stuttering in preschool and s... more Purpose This study investigated peer responses to preschoolers' stuttering in preschool and sought to determine whether specific characteristics of participants' stuttering patterns elicited negative peer responses. Method Four outdoor free-play sessions of 4 preschoolers age 3–4 years who stutter were videotaped. Stutters were identified on transcripts of the play sessions. Peer responses to stuttered utterances were judged to be negative or neutral/positive. Thereafter, participants' stuttering behaviors, durations of stutters, and judgments of the meaningfulness of peer-directed stuttered utterances were analyzed. Results Between 71.4% and 100% of peer responses were judged to be neutral/positive. In the negative responses across 3 participants, peers were observed to react with confusion or to interrupt, mock, walk away from, or ignore the stuttered utterances. Utterances that elicited negative responses were typically meaningless and contained stutters that were beh...

Research paper thumbnail of Results of an Intensive Stuttering Therapy Program 1 Resultats d ' un traitement intensif du begaiement

This paper reports the results of a three-week intensive program for 10 adult and adolescent stut... more This paper reports the results of a three-week intensive program for 10 adult and adolescent stutterers. Measurements were made immediately before and after treatment and again during the follow-up period, 12 14 months post-treatment. The measures included percentage of stuttering, syllables spoken per minute and three self-report scales designed to measure changes in attitudes. perceptions and self-confidence. In the follow-up period, subjects completed a fourth scale in which they indicated their level of satisfaction with their speech performance. The results indicated that substantial positive changes occurred and were maintained in both speech performance and non-speech variables.

Research paper thumbnail of Developing student teachers' understanding of stuttering through exposure to video recordings of people who stutter

Research paper thumbnail of Exploring the Viability of Exposure to Stories of Individuals who Stutter as a Learning Tool

Research paper thumbnail of tuttering treatment for a school-age child with Down syndrome : A escriptive case report

Background: Little is known about optimal treatment approaches and stuttering treatment outcomes ... more Background: Little is known about optimal treatment approaches and stuttering treatment outcomes for children with Down syndrome. Aims and method: The purpose of this study was to investigate outcomes for a child with Down syndrome who received a combination of fluency shaping therapy and parent delivered contingencies for normally fluent speech, prolonged speech, and stuttered speech. Results: In-clinic speech measures obtained at post-treatment and at 4 months followup reflected improvements in fluency of 89.0% and 98.6%, respectively. The participant’s beyond-clinic follow-up sample reflected an improvement of 95.5%. Following treatment, the participant demonstrated improved self-confidence, self-esteem, and improved participation and functioning at school. Conclusions: Findings suggest that fluency shaping with parental contingencies may be a viable treatment approach to reduce stuttering in children with Down syndrome. Future research using an experimental research design is wa...

Research paper thumbnail of Teasing/Bullying Experienced by Children Who Stutter: Toward Development of a Questionnaire

Contemporary Issues in Communication Science and Disorders

Research paper thumbnail of Evidence-Based Practice in Fluency Disorders

Research paper thumbnail of Exploring how preschoolers who stutter use spoken language during free play: A feasibility study

International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology

Play is critically important for the healthy development of children. This study explored the via... more Play is critically important for the healthy development of children. This study explored the viability of a methodology to investigate how preschoolers who stutter use language in play with peers. Transcripts of peer-directed utterances of four preschoolers who stutter and four matched non-stuttering children during free play were analysed for measures of verbal output (numbers of utterances and words), length and complexity of utterances (mean length of communication unit and syntactic complexity), and lexical diversity (number of different words, type token ratio and vocd). Viable speech samples were obtained. Verbal output scores of two children who stutter were the same or higher than their matched controls whereas mean length of communication unit and syntactic complexity scores for three children who stutter were lower than their matched controls. In 22 of the 24 comparisons across number of different words, type token ratio, and vocd, scores of children who stutter were the same or higher than their matched controls. Interpretation of data is limited by the small sample size and lack of standardised testing. However, results indicate that the methodology has promise for future research into the way preschoolers who stutter use spoken language during play and the quality of their play.

Research paper thumbnail of Evidence-based guidelines for being supportive of people who stutter in North America

Journal of Fluency Disorders

Research paper thumbnail of Using critical realistic evaluation to support translation of research into clinical practice

International journal of speech-language pathology, Jun 1, 2017

A challenge that speech-language pathologists (SLPs) face is the translation of research into cli... more A challenge that speech-language pathologists (SLPs) face is the translation of research into clinical practice. While randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are often touted as the "gold standard" of efficacy research, much valuable information is lost through the process; RCTs by nature are designed to wash out individual client factors and contexts that might influence the outcome in order to present the "true" impact of the intervention. However, in the area of behavioural interventions, the interaction of client factors and contexts with the treatment agent can substantially influence the outcome. This paper provides an overview of the theoretical background and methods involved in critical realistic evaluation (CRE) and discusses its current and potential application to speech-language pathology. CRE is based on the premise that a behavioural intervention cannot be evaluated without considering the context in which it was provided. While the ways in which cont...