Proceedings of the

2000

Joint

World Congress on Stuttering & Cluttering

Foreword

As editors we are well aware of the fact that we dealt only with the final products of the work that was done by participants, consumers and the organisers. The productive, fruitful and comfortable atmosphere of the congress was the result of a highly successful collaboration between the Congress President Bent E. Kjaer, Per F. Knudsen (chair of the Organising Committee), Hans-Georg Bosshardt (chair of the Programme Committee), Herman Peters (chair of the Congress and Organisational Committee) and Luc de Nil (President of the World Stuttering & Cluttering Organization). A little bit more behind the scenes but crucially important was the work that was most efficiently done by Hermann Christmann (chair of the Registration Committee), Steen Fibiger (chair of the Sponsorship Committee) and Luc de Nil as Treasurer of the Congress. These Proceedings are the end result of a lot of solid work performed by many people with the greatest dedication over a considerable amount of time.

As we are writing this foreword about the Third World Congress on Fluency Disorders we are looking back in time to the charming congress site Nyborg on the Island of Fünen in Denmark, to many stimulating scholarly discussions and to personal meetings and dialogues with friends and colleagues from all over the world. These Proceedings can refresh our memories about impressive presentations and provide an overview over world-wide developments in science, therapy, institutions and self-help. But the proceedings also document the results of several years of hard work from the participants as well as from the organisers of the congress. As editors we are well aware of the fact that we dealt only with the final products of the work that was done by participants, consumers and the organisers. The productive, fruitful and comfortable atmosphere of the congress was the result of a highly successful collaboration between the Congress President Bent E. Kjaer, Per F. Knudsen (chair of the Organising Committee), Hans-Georg Bosshardt (chair of the Programme Committee), Herman Peters (chair of the Congress and Organisational Committee) and Luc de Nil (President of the World Stuttering & Cluttering Organization). A little bit more behind the scenes but crucially important was the work that was most efficiently done by Hermann Christmann (chair of the Registration Committee), Steen Fibiger (chair of the Sponsorship Committee) and Luc de Nil as Treasurer of the Congress. These Proceedings are the end result of a lot of solid work performed by many people with the greatest dedication over a considerable amount of time.

The Third World Congress continues a tradition that had already been established by the two earlier congresses in that it provides a platform for the presentation of results from basic research, intervention strategies, self-help projects and initiatives. Basic research about the developmental, genetic, physiological, motoric, linguistic, and emotional determinants of stuttering form a large and important part of the programme. Sometimes people doubt whether this kind of basic research is useful if it has no obvious implications for therapy. But the editors are strongly convinced that, although the revenues are not guaranteed for every single finding, basic research is an essential investment into the future of our therapy techniques.

The Proceedings also present a wide variety of intervention strategies. Clinical treatment is still the very heart of our professional knowledge and skills. You will find many contributions presenting new treatment methods for children and adults, and new approaches of parent training and counselling. Therapeutic treatment of individuals with fluency disorders and their families is without doubt the most direct and highly efficient intervention strategy. But it turns out that this form of intervention has to be complemented by others which aim at informing the public about treatment possibilities, motivating clinicians and consumers to pursue early intervention, increasing the tolerance for fluency problems, and motivating therapists to specialise in our field. In short, intervention for fluency comprises also political and organisational work. For this kind of intervention, professionals need strong partners, and contributions from self-help organisations were fully integrated parts of the congress programme. You will find a wealth of new ideas, initiatives and concrete projects in the Proceedings that document this broader sense of intervention.

The Third World Congress was a truly international congress because it was attended by 328 participants from 39 nations from almost all continents (unfortunately the Antarctica was not represented). This provides the opportunity to expand our mutual knowledge and experience. We found it extraordinarily instructive to listen to colleagues from different cultural and economic backgrounds and to learn how they cope with institutional, social and financial difficulties, which resources they can draw from, and what kind of treatment they offer to their clients. People from economically less wealthy countries could not participate without solid financial support, and we are very grateful for generous donations from the Stuttering Information Center of Denmark, the Association for Stutterers in Denmark, the Ministry of Education of Denmark, and the Oticon Foundation. In addition, largely through Steen Fibiger’s mediation, colleagues from Eastern European and Asian countries were supported by the Danish Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the National Teachers Organisation for Special Education of 1981, the Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Daloon Foundation. We will not forget their support.

We are particularly grateful to the Stuttering Information Center of Denmark, its director Per F. Knudsen and staff (Tine Egebjerg, Dorte Hansen, Henrik D. Soerensen, Inge Peters-Lehm and Helle Frederiksen) for their organisational and logistic support of the Congress. Without their help the Congress would not have been possible.

Part of the mission of the World Stuttering & Cluttering Organization is to facilitate the interaction between researchers, clinicians and consumers on an international basis. The official language of the congress was English which creates of course difficulties for some colleagues with a non-English language background. When we described this situation to the congress participants we were overwhelmed by the readiness of 13 English-speaking colleagues to serve as editorial consultants and to review a couple of manuscripts from colleagues whose native language is not English. The editorial consultants have crucially improved the readability and clarity of many manuscripts and thereby created the presupposition that all contributions of the Proceedings will find the world-wide reception they deserve. As editors of the Proceedings we are extraordinarily grateful to the generous help of these colleagues.

Editors

Hans-Georg Bosshardt (Ruhr-University Bochum Germany)
J. Scott Yaruss (University of Pittsburgh USA)
F.M. Hermann (Peters University of Nijmegen The Netherlands)

Editorial consultants

Michael Blomgren (University of Utah, USA)
Willie Botterill (The Michael Palin Center for Stammering Children, London (Great Britain)
Luc de Nil (University of Toronto, Toronto (Canada)
Susan Dietrich (University of Carolina, Greensboro (USA)
Charles E. Healy (University of Nebraska, Lincoln (USA)
Kenneth Logan (University of Florida, Gainesville (USA)
Larry Molt (Auburn University, Auburn (USA)
Catherine Montgomery (The American Institute for Stuttering, New York (USA)
Nan Bernstein Ratner (University of Maryland, College Park (USA)
David Shapiro (Western Carolina University, Cullowhee (USA)
Jennifer Watson (Texas Christian University, Fort Worth (USA)
Amy Weiss (University of Iowa, Iowa City (USA)
Scott Yaruss (University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh (USA)