Workshop Applications

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2025 Workshops

The Eastern Workshop: Using Cognitive Approaches with People Who Stutter

Dates: To Be Announced

Location: Boston University

Objective: This one-week course will provide speech-language pathologists with an introduction to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) in relation to the assessment and treatment of stuttering. Therapists will also be equipped to deliver Palin PCIT (Parent-Child Interaction Therapy), an evidence based therapy programme for young children who stutter.

Workshop Faculty: Elaine Kelman, MSc, Cert CT, Cert MRCSLT, and Ali Berquez, MSc, BA (Hons), CertMRCSLT, Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children

FINANCIAL DISCLOSURES
Elaine Kelman: Receives an honorarium from the Stuttering Foundation for teaching the workshop. She has a financial relationship with Speechmark Publishing for receiving book royalties.
Ali Berquez: Receives an honorarium from the Stuttering Foundation for teaching the workshop.

NONFINANCIAL DISCLOSURES
Elain Kelman: None
Ali Berquez: None

Conference Coordinator: Caroline Brinkert, M.S., CCC-SLP, Boston University

IMPORTANT DEADLINE: To Be Announced

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CELEBRITY FOCUS

Carly Simon

Carly Simon began stuttering severely when she was eight years old.

Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor has been on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter for many years, but probably few people know all of the unique accomplishments of this former hockey great who was born on December 4, 1955, in Levack, Ontario.

Bruce Willis

While the world knows Bruce Willis as an A-list actor, few know that he struggled with stuttering throughout his first 20 years.

Walter Bruce Willis was born in 1955 in West Germany to his German mother, Marlene, and his American GI father, David Willis. The family settled in David’s hometown of Penns Grove, New Jersey in 1957, and the couple has three other children.

Bill Withers

While Bill Withers has long been on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter, many people probably didn’t realize he stuttered. He passed away on March 30, 2020.

Born in 1938 in Slab Fork, W.V., Withers was the youngest of six children. When his father died when Withers was small, he was raised by his mother and grandmother, both of whom worked as domestics.

Bill Walton

From BillWalton.com

Thank you for your interest in my life long problem with my speech and communication skills. I was a very shy and reserved young man who could not speak at all without severely stuttering until I was 28 years old. Always a success in the classroom and on the basketball court, I took refuge in the things that I did well as a youngster. A straight A student, my athletic abilities covered the deficiencies that limited my overall growth and development. The game of basketball was my religion, the gym my church. It was a convenient way of avoiding my responsibilities of developing my human relation skills.

When I was 28, a chance encounter at a social event with Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Glickman completely changed my life in so many ways that things have never been the same since, nor have they ever been better. That day, in a very brief, private conversation (one way, mind you, since I literally could not speak at the time) Marty explained, patiently and concisely, that talking, communicating was a skill not a gift or a birthright and that like any skill, whether it be sports, music, business or whatever, needed to be developed over a lifetime of hard work, discipline, organization and practice. Marty gave me some simple tips that day and then encouraged me to take those keys and apply them to methods of learning that I had received from the special teachers that I had come across in my life, particularly the 6 Hall of Fame basketball coaches that I had played for throughout my career. The beginning of my whole new life was as simple as that. No gimmicks, tricks or shortcuts. Just the realization that with some help, guidance and a lot of hard work that I too could do what seemed so easy, simple and natural to everyone else, yet seemed impossibly out of my reach and comprehension.