The transcripts and video clips that you can view and download from the three links given below have been contributed by members of the National Stuttering Association (http://westutter.org) to assist students in learning more about the behaviors and affective/cognitive features of living with stuttering as an adult.

Browsable transcripts

Download transcripts and OASES

Media

For each self-identified stuttering participant, you will see a video, an UNANNOTATED transcript, and a specially marked copy of the OASES survey (contributed to this project by the authors J. Scott Yaruss and Bob Quesal) that the participant filled out on the day of taping. Contributors were asked to answer the following questions:

1. Please talk about the impact of stuttering on your daily life: You can talk about your interactions with family and friends, school and/or work, and your participation in community activities.
2. What do you think causes stuttering?
3. If you have received treatment for your stuttering, tell me about your therapy experiences and the outcomes of these therapies.
4. Please describe what successful communication means to you; can you give an example of a positive communicative experience?
5. If you didn't stutter, what might be different in your life?
6. What else would you want to say to students (or the general public) to help them learn about stuttering or ways to support people who stutter?

Some participants did not answer all questions, or combined responses to questions in a single set of comments. Starting in June, 2017 new contributions from adults who stutter also contain a reading of the Friuli reading passage from the SSI4, provided with the consent of the publishers of the Stuttering Severity Instrument -4.

Suggested activities for these transcripts include:

1. Practice with fluency assessment. It is well-known that transcribers disagree substantially when coding the same passage of stuttered speech, in terms of presence/absence of disfluency, location as well as type of fluency behaviors. Instructors may want to assign the same participant to be coded by multiple students (or an entire class of students). Discuss how listeners may agree or disagree on the behavioral features of stuttering, as well as behaviors that appear to be stutter-like or more typical disfluency.
2. Practice with scoring of the Stuttering Severity Instrument. (Note: forms are not provided; you may purchase a full set of materials at Pro-Ed. You may choose to contrast patterns of stuttering that are seen when volunteers read, in contrast to their conversational speech.
3. Practice with OASES scoring. For a given participant, consult OASES scoring guidelines (NOTE: these are not included, and users must access a purchased version of the instrument from here). How would you characterize the impact of stuttering on this participant? Can you identify impacts that should influence therapy goals? How might you address these impacts?
4. Practice with contrasting behavioral and affective/cognitive aspects of stuttering in adults. Assess the degree to which individuals' behavioral profiles match the impacts of stuttering on their lives. Are the impacts of stuttering clearly linked to the frequency or severity of stuttered events in a person's speech? Discuss.
5. Listen to the answers that participants gave to the 6 questions. Are there similar threads? Are there clear differences in people's opinions? How might responses to these questions shape further mutual goal setting for therapy?

Compare profiles of volunteers in the Voices of People who Stutter project and volunteers below, who self-identify as People who Clutter.

These are just some ideas to get instructors and students started. We welcome ideas for other activities. Please contact us at nratner@umd.edu with suggestions and comments.