Avoidance Reduction Therapy for Stuttering (ARTS^®)

Abstract: Avoidance Reduction Therapy for Stuttering (ARTS^®) is based on the idea that disfluency in stuttering may be neurodevelopmental, but physical and socio-emotional struggle (and subsequent life-impact) result from adaptation to a society that stigmatizes stuttering. The gradual shift from viewing stuttering through the lens of a medical model to a social model is changing our definition of stuttering, the ways we characterize that lived experience, and our valued therapy outcomes. This webinar will provide a therapy framework to address underlying sources of conflict and invite participants to consider that acceptance and change are compatible and lead to spontaneous, comfortable, confident, differently-fluent communication.

Speaker: Vivian Sisskin is a Clinical Professor at the University of Maryland, an ASHA Fellow, and Board-Certified Specialist in Fluency. She created the YouTube Channel “Open Stutter”, serving as a resource for acceptance and change for stutterers and their allies. Sisskin owns the Sisskin Stuttering Center in the Washington DC area.