CONVERSATION WITH SCOTT YARUSS.

Few people have dedicated so much of their life, and career to the cause.
You can see his bio below, just prepare to scroll…)

What cause, you may ask…?

- Being an ally to children and parents, teens and adults who stutter.

- Providing practical therapy resources for speech-language pathology clinicians.

- Contributing oodles of research and presentations to the literature in our professional field.

In this conversation we discuss:

- Latest research findings in neuroscience, genetics, pharmacology and more.

- Future directions, in research and clinical care for people who stutter

- Advice for students and up-and-coming speech-language pathologists

- Hopes for what we can do in the coming years

and more...

Bio:

J. Scott Yaruss is a professor of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, a practicing speech-language pathologist with more than 25 years of clinical experience, and a board-certified specialist in fluency disorders. He joined the faculty of  MSU in 2017, with the overarching goal helping speech-language pathologists improve their ability to provide meaningful and lasting support for people who live with stuttering.

Yaruss has published more than 85 peer-reviewed articles, as well as more than 110 other articles, chapters, and books about stuttering. He has given hundreds of continuing education workshops, seminars, and other presentations at local, national, and international conferences. He has also served in various posts for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Special Interest Group for Fluency Disorders and on the Board of Directors of the National Stuttering Association. He has been active in the stuttering self-help community for more 20 years.

Prior to coming to MSU, Yaruss was at the University of Pittsburgh and Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, where he led the Stuttering Center of Western Pennsylvania. He  holds a bachelor’s degree in linguistics and psychology from the University of California Berkeley, and a master’s and doctorate in speech-language pathology from Syracuse University. While at the University of Pittsburgh, he was recognized with the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Dean's Distinguished Teaching Award.

In 2011, he co-founded Stuttering Therapy Resources (https://www.StutteringTherapyResources.com), a specialty publishing company focused on providing practical materials for helping speech-language pathologists help those who stutter. Key publications include: School-Age Stuttering Therapy: A Practical Guide, Early Childhood Stuttering Therapy: A Practical Guide, Minimizing Bullying for Children Who Stutter, and the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (OASES), a comprehensive instrument used around the world to measure the adverse impact of stuttering on people's lives.

Yaruss's current research focuses on the experience of stuttering from the perspective of individuals who stutter. The goal is to learn more about the nature of the breakdown in communication, both at the level of speech production and in terms of the broader life impact experienced by those who stutter. Find out more at the website of the Spartan Stuttering Laboratory: https://StutteringLab.msu.edu.