CSD Engages Larger Community with Leading Workshops

CSD continued to demonstrate leadership in the field this past year by hosting multiple workshops on a variety of important issues.

One standout was a stuttering workshop run by Dr. Eric Jackson, associate professor, and made possible by the generous support of Arthur J. Antin, MA ’73. Ten children who stutter between the ages of 13 and 18 spoke to Dr. Jackson’s stuttering class of 45 graduate students, sharing their experiences and offering advice on how to help kids who stutter in their future careers. The workshop also included a two-hour Zoom consultation with school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in the community on how they can best help their clients who stutter.

Several well-known adults who stutter also volunteered their time to talk to the participating children and graduate students, including Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, former NBA player; John Hendrickson, staff writer at The Atlantic); and Katharine Preston, author of Out With It: How Stuttering Helped Me Find My Voice.

The children developed their own change plans of what they want to do in the next six months, such as working on confidence speaking, using speaking strategies, and being more open about stuttering. They made videos to take home to share with family and their SLPs so that everyone knows how best to support them.

Department Chair and Professor Dr. Maria Grigos co-led a valuable workshop for SLPs on childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) alongside industry expert, Dr. Edythe Strand. The workshop is funded by The Once Upon a Time Foundation, a $225 million private foundation based in Fort Worth, Texas, to train SLPs on how to evaluate and treat CAS using dynamic assessment and motor-based interventions.

Fifty clinicians from all over the world were accepted into this competitive two-day workshop. The curriculum is geared particularly toward SLPs working in schools with children who might not have the opportunity to fund this kind of professional development without the financial assistance provided by Once Upon a Time. 

“We’ve hosted this CAS workshop at NYU several times in the past, and it’s the perfect way to get into the trenches and help clinicians build specialized skills to support this underserved population using research-based evidence and tools,” says Dr. Grigos. “We look forward to hosting another CAS workshop in spring 2024.”