About this book

“The Science of Stuttering” (TSS) is a web-based module for use in a university or college level course in phonetics, sociolinguistics, or clinical phonetics. It is also suitable for standalone individual use. TSS explores what stuttering is from the point of view of social sciences research.

This open education resource will introduce learners to issues in stuttering research and help develop skills that will be useful for students of all disciplines, including those considering graduate study in speech-language pathology. It is meant to challenge everyone to better understand the lived experiences of people who stutter and how speech-language pathologists can address those experiences in the clinical treatment of stuttering.

TSS is the result of a collaborative and multidisciplinary project carried out by the Communication Collaborative, a research group in solidarity with The Newfoundland and Labrador Stuttering Association (NLSA) and those living with speech, language and voice differences in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The NLSA is a volunteer group dedicated to advocacy and support for people who stutter.

We have set out an ambitious set of goals for The Science of Stuttering (TSS):

to communicate how we might see stuttering as a sociolinguistic phenomenon
to examine issues in the history of research on stuttering while being interesting enough for learners to want to pick this up on their own
to appeal to students of all backgrounds and stimulate important questions for students in or considering the field of speech-language pathology

A number of people who stutter were directly involved in developing this resource because they wanted graduating students to better understand the realities of living with a communication disorder – or linguistic differences -including some of the mental health concerns they face. We also worked with speech-language pathologists, counsellors and mental health practitioners to ensure we are accurate in what we present.

The overall structure of the book is simple.

In Part 1, you will see how stuttering has been defined at different stages in history: TSS offers a timeline linking significant phases of thinking re: stuttering and treatment. Part 2 presents some defining elements of stuttering and what we might gain by looking at stuttering (and other communication disorders) through a sociolinguistic lens. Short video stories appear in Part 3 that document the thoughts, impressions and experiences of people who stutter in that allow you to hear directly about the personal effects of stuttering. Lastly, in Part 4, you can step into the role of a speech-language pathologist and see if you have what it takes to assess and a diagnose a client who stutters.

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