Kenneth O. St. Louis, a professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders in the West Virginia University College of Education and Human Services, will deliver a presentation on Measuring Public Attitudes Toward Stuttering: From a Simple Idea to a Successful 17-Year Research Program on Thurs., Feb. 11th.

This presentation will consider the public attitude environment that children and adults who stutter must deal with everyday. This sometimes involves negative stereotyping, stigmatizing, teasing, bullying, and discrimination.

St. Louis’ presentation will focus on the past 17 years of his research where he has examined the public’s beliefs and reactions regarding stuttering. Summaries of findings regarding international comparisons of attitudes (currently from more than 40 countries in more than 25 languages) sets the stage for other studies in the applied social sciences that have attempted to improve public attitudes.

Children and adults who stutter often live in communities that foster stereotypes and create stigma about this speech disorder. St. Louis’ presentation is meant to acquaint the audience with the “whys,” the “hows,” and the “whats” related to public attitudes toward stuttering and attempts at changing and improving these attitudes. The presentation is also meant to be helpful to faculty and graduate students as a model for developing their own research programs.

St. Louis has taught thousands of students and treated fluency and other communication disorders for more than 40 years. His research has culminated in more than 150 publications and 300 presentations.

St. Louis is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and was awarded the International Cluttering Association’s Deso Weiss Award for Excellence in Cluttering, WVU’s Benedum Distinguished Scholar Award, WVU’s Heebink Award for Outstanding Service to the State, and the International Fluency Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He founded the International Project of Attitudes Toward Human Attributes and has collaborated with numerous international colleagues on measuring public attitudes toward stuttering and other human attributes in a number of countries.

Though mostly recovered, St. Louis has struggled with, lived, observed, researched, treated, and taught about the problem of stuttering for all but a few of his 71 years. He will not achieve his youthful goal of “solving the problem of stuttering,” but his efforts have positively impacted his relatives, colleagues, clients, and students.

As Professor St. Louis ends his career, he is helping to set into motion a new appreciation of the public’s beliefs about and reactions to stuttering and new initiatives to improve the lives of children and adults who stutter through attitude change.

The talk is to be held in Allen Hall, Room 406, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m., with a reception to follow. Both the presentation and reception are open to WVU students, faculty, and staff and members of the Morgantown community.

-WVU-

01/19/16

Contact: Christie Zachary, Director of Marketing and Communication
304.293.0224, Christie.Zachary@mail.wvu.edu