Ameliorating Negative Stereotyping of Stuttering in a Fluency Disorders Class

Isabella Reichel and Kenneth St Louis

A curriculum, integrated into a graduate fluency disorders course with students from various cultural backgrounds, focused on negative stereotypes toward stuttering in multicultural and multinational contexts. Its purpose was to improve students’ attitudes toward people who stutter and to enhance students’ interest in treating stuttering. A qualitative questionnaire and an experimental edition of the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes (POSHA-E) (St. Louis, in press) were utilized to measure changes in students’ opinions and attitudes. Highly positive responses on the qualitative questionnaire characterized students’ evaluations of the curriculum, and mixed improvements were observed in attitudes on selected POSHA-E items.