Kurt Eggers

The purpose of this chapter is to focus on what speech-language pathologists working in the field of fluency disorders can do to become more effective clinicians. There is a need in the field for people specializing in the assessment and treatment of fluency disorders and for specific programs which provide such specialist knowledge and skills.

Although there seems to be an impetus for demonstrating the effectiveness of fluency treatment approaches and for comparing the effectiveness between approaches, the currently available data do not seem to support the idea that any one treatment approach is resulting in better treatment outcomes compared to others. Therefore, a common factors model or contextual model were employed to hypothesize about possible active components of stuttering treatments.

Strategies to improve the clinician’s effectiveness in treating fluency disorders such as increased critical reasoning and improving facilitative interpersonal skills are also discussed.

Finally, a model for the education of fluency specialists is reviewed.