Daily Wrap-Up and Stuttering from a Gender Perspective from the IFA in Portugal (Ep. 529)

stuttering, StutterTalk
Ineke Samson

Dr. Tom Weidig and Christopher Constantino begin this episode with their first daily wrap-up from Day 1 of The International Fluency Association’s 2015 World Congress on cluttering, stuttering and other fluency disorders in Lisbon, Portugal. This event is a collaboration between the International Fluency Association (IFA) and the International Cluttering Association (ICA).

During the second part of this episode, Ineke Sampson, a speech-language pathologist in Stockholm, Sweden, joins Christopher Constantino to discuss her poster session titled Stuttering from a gender perspective – follow-up study 5-9 years post-referral.

Ineke Samson, is a speech-language pathologist in Stockholm, Sweden. Ineke works at Danderyds University Hospital and the Karolinska Institute both in Sweden. Ms. Samson presented a poster of research she conducted in collaboration with Elisabeth Lindström from Åbo Akademi University, Finland. Below is the abstract from Ms. Samson’s poster session:

This study sought to investigate if symptoms of stuttering show differences based on gender, and to explore when the ratio change between the sexes take place. Participants were       children referred to a specialist and diagnosed with stuttering at an age of 2-4. Speech analysis and self-report of communication in relation to social, emotional and cognitive state was made. Results showed that 54% of the participating 24 children were still stuttering, with a sex ratio of 1.7:1. No differences either between the sexes for stuttering characteristics, or how the children experienced that stuttering affected quality of life, we found.

Dr. Tom Weidig is the brain behind the popular Stuttering Brain blog. Dr. Weidig’s blog contains more than 1000 posts and 5000 comments over a period of 10 years with 1000 weekly readers. Dr. Weidig has a PhD and has done postdoctoral research in theoretical physics and currently works in the financial industry specializing in private equity and venture capital.

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.