Michael Azios

In intervention pre-test/post-test studies using educational, psychological, or related scales, when paired numerical or ordinal scores are not perfectly correlated, a statistical phenomenon known ...

Purpose: The initial diagnosis of stuttering is based on stuttering-like disfluencies. This approach fails to capture the variability in overt stuttering behaviors of persons who stutter across speaking tasks and over time. This preliminary study explored the relationships between day-to-day variability of stuttering and several commonly used self-report and behavioral outcomes used to diagnose and monitor stuttering in clinical and research settings. Method: Five adults who stutter participated in this study. All participants completed a demographic questionnaire; the Overall Assessment of the Experience of Stuttering, State, and Trait Anxiety Inventory; and the Brief Version of Unhelpful Thoughts and Beliefs About Stuttering (UTBAS), followed by six (i.e., twice weekly) online sessions where conversation and reading samples were video-recorded to determine stuttering frequency and severity. Participants also rated their stuttering severity, variability, stress, anxiety, and sleep on a 7-point Likert scale for each session. Results: No self-report measures correlated with stuttering frequency or severity measures determined at each twice-weekly online session. Positive correlations were observed between self-rated stuttering severity and stress, anxiety, and normal disfluencies. Stuttering variability across tasks and sessions was positively correlated with the one-time Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (OASES) and UTBAS-6 scores. Conclusions: Stuttering frequency was found to vary to different degrees for individual participants, and preliminary data suggest that scores on standardized assessments such as the OASES and UTBAS-6 are predictive of stuttering variability. Objective data on stuttering frequency may not capture the entire experience of stuttering.

Purpose: The objective of this study was to examine specific patterns of Twitter usage using common reference to stuttering. Method: The study used cross-sectional analysis of data generated from Twitter data. Twitter content, language, reach, users, accounts, temporal trends, and social networks were examined. Results: We identified and analyzed around 270,000 tweets from May to September 2018. Of the 100 most active Twitter accounts, individuals owned 64% compared with 31% owned by organizations. The individual accounts mainly consisted of comedians who stutter and individual's accounts. Of the individual accounts, 61% belonged to people who did not stutter or significant others of persons who stutter (PWSs). PWSs or significant others of PWSs accounted for 10.9% and 28.1%, respectively. Three unique tweets were identified as each having a reach of over 8 million Twitter users, with the greatest reach exceeding 40 million users. Temporal analysis identified marked retweet outliers (> 2,800 and > 2,200 retweets per day) that corresponded with a prank call made to the president on air force one by Stuttering John. Results indicate that, during data collection, Twitter is a platform that primarily functions to assail political opponents or denigrate adversaries, which further enhances the negative stereotypes about stuttering. Conclusions: The conclusions are based on the 100 most active/highest reach Twitter accounts. Twitter accounts owned by individuals outnumbered organization accounts, and people who do not stutter were the most frequently active account type. This study offers important insights regarding existing trends and offers an informed direction for future advocacy for PWSs and their supporting community via Twitter.

The understanding of how stuttering is portrayed in the newspaper media has largely been ignored but plays a role in public perception of stuttering. A text pattern analysis, cross-sectional study was conducted based upon analyses of publicly available data. The text corpus were generated from the U.S. newspaper media during 1980–2018 (downloaded from the database U.S. Major Dailies by ProQuest). The text corpuses were analyzed using the Iramuteq software using the cluster analysis and Chi square tests. The newspaper data set had 970 texts (i.e., articles in the main corpus). The cluster analysis of the main corpus resulted in six clusters, which were named as: (1) music (2) sports (3) politics and economy (4) speech (5) cinema, and (6) general. The sub-corpus which was built based on aspects related to speech (i.e., cluster 4 in main corpus analysis) had 539 texts, which had at least one segment in sub-corpus. The cluster analysis of sub corpus resulted in four clusters, which were named as: (1) education and social support (2) personal aspects (3) aspects related to speech and (4) research and development. Time series analysis of clusters indicated a change in the pattern of information presented in newspaper media during 1980–2018. The study shows that stuttering has been presented in the media while discussing various elements including sports, arts and politics and economy, and speech. The aspects related to speech found media focuses on various elements including personal aspects, providing education and support, and providing new insights into research and development

This preliminary study explored the feasibility and benefits of using cinematherapy with adults who stutter to address affective and cognitive reactions to stuttering and their impact on the persons' life. A mixed methods research design was used to explore the impact of cinematherapy. Four clients completed a 4-week structured cinematherapy program. All clients completed two questionnaires: Unhelpful Thoughts and Beliefs about Stuttering and Overall Experience of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering, before starting and after completing the program. At the end of the program, clients also completed a semistructured interview. The semistructured interviews provide insight on clients' perceptions of cinematherapy, and questionnaires provided quantitative insights on the clients' perceptions of change. Qualitative data analysis indicated that clients reported five themes related to perceptions of cinematherapy: Promoted Vulnerability; Nurtured Empowerment; Stimulated Self-Reflection; Incited Feelings of Belonging; and Diminished Self-Stigma. Overall, clients reported a clinically significant decrease in scores on both questionnaires after completion of the 4-week cinematherapy program. Results indicate that cinematherapy was well received and had a positive impact on cognitive and affective aspects of stuttering in the four adult clients. These results provide preliminary support for larger scale clinical trials of cinematherapy as an adjuvant to traditional stuttering therapy. Financial: No financial relationships exist for any of the authors. Nonfinancial: No nonfinancial relationships exist for any of the authors. Publication Date: 21 September 2020 (online) © 2020. Thieme. All rights reserved. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.