Stammering and the Social Model of Disability: Implications for Therapy (Ep. 536)

stuttering, StutterTalk
Rachel Everard, Chris Constantino and Sam Simpson

Rachel Everard and Sam Simpson join Christopher Constantino from The International Fluency Association’s 2015 World Congress on cluttering, stuttering and other fluency disorders in Lisbon, Portugal. Simpson and Everard are asked about their presentation Stammering and the Social Model of Disability: Implications for Therapy.

Rachel Everard will be co-presenting, with Carolyn Cheasman, a two-day weekend workshop at Boston University, September 12 & 13, 2015. The workshop is titled Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Speech and Language Pathologists and is sponsored by the Stuttering Foundation and Boston University. This two-day workshop will provide valuable training on the methods of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

Rachel Everard is a specialist speech and language therapist whose decision to train as a therapist stemmed from the fact she stutters herself and from her life-changing experience of receiving therapy at City Lit. Since qualifying in 1996, she has worked in a variety of settings, including community clinics and mainstream primary schools, before joining the City Lit team in 2001. Due to her own personal experience of stuttering, she strongly believes in empowering people who stutter and in the benefits of group therapy. She also believes in the value of self-help and has had a long-standing involvement with the British Stammering Association. To complement her skills as a speech and language therapist, Rachel has completed a certificate in person-centered counseling. Rachel may be contacted via email: Rachel.everard@citylit.ac.uk.

Sam Simpson is counselor and speech language therapist at InTandem. Ms. Simpson’s current areas of interest include counseling and speech and language therapy for people who stammer and their families (individually and in groups), individual counseling for young people in collaboration with Off the Record, individual counseling for people living with cancer in collaboration with The Mulberry Centre and much more. Sam may be contacted via email: sam@intandem.co.uk.

With their colleague Carolyn Cheasman, Ms. Everard and Ms. Simpson co-edited the book ‘Stammering Therapy on the Inside: New Perspectives on Working with Young People and Adults.’

Christopher Constantino is a person who stutters and a PhD student in Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Memphis. Chris is doing his clinical fellowship in the Shelby County Schools in Memphis and is conducting a research study to understand and contextualize the experiences of passing as fluent for people who covertly stutter.