Attitudes of Turkish speech and language therapists toward stuttering.

PURPOSE: The study sought to identify clinical beliefs and attitudes of speech and language therapists (SLTs) in Turkey and to compare them to previous research on SLTs in the USA and UK. METHOD: The Clinician Attitudes Toward Stuttering (CATS) inventory was administered by mail to nearly all-practicing SLTs in Turkey (n=61). RESULTS: Turkish SLTs, whose caseloads contained a substantial number of people who stutter, agreed with CATS items suggesting psychological causes and problems for those who stutter. They strongly believed therapy should focus on parent counseling for preschoolers who stutter as well as adolescents. They were not optimistic about carrying out stuttering therapy nor about the likelihood that children who stutter could be effectively treated. CONCLUSION: Attitudes toward stuttering by clinicians who treat them are important considerations in the conduct and outcomes of stuttering therapy. Additionally, SLTs working with stuttering clients should benefit from professional views and clinical experiences of their colleagues from surveys such as this one. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will be able to describe: (a) the components of the CATS, (b) common themes in Turkish speech and language therapists' attitudes toward stuttering, (c) differences between the attitudes of speech and language therapists from Turkey versus the United States and the United Kingdom.

Identification of cluttering and stuttering by the public in four countries.

The investigators sought to explore and compare the identification of cluttering vs stuttering in four different country samples. After reading lay definitions of the two fluency disorders in their own language, convenience samples of 60-90 adult respondents from Turkey, Bulgaria, Russia, and the US identified 51-119 children or adults who either cluttered, stuttered, or both. They also indicated whether or not they, themselves, cluttered or stuttered. The majority of respondents in all four samples identified at least one person who cluttered, stuttered, or cluttered and stuttered. The average respondent identified one person with a fluency disorder, most likely a stutterer, less likely a clutterer, and least likely a clutterer-stutterer. Both similarities and differences characterized those identified in the three groups, e.g., the sex ratios were not the same. As with stuttering, the public apparently is aware of cluttering individuals and can identify such persons.