Distinguished Scholars
Nan Bernstein Ratner
Nan is Professor in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park. She is a Fellow and Honors recipient of the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association. In 2014, Nan was made a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her most recent book is the seventh edition of A Handbook on Stuttering, co-authored with the late Oliver Bloodstein and Shelley Brundage. Nan’s current major research interest is the speech and language of young children who stutter.
Marie-Christine Franken
Marie-Christine has a background in Linguistics, and she is certified as a Speech-Language Pathologist and as a Fluency Expert. From 1985 to 1994, Marie-Christine worked as a clinical researcher in the field of stuttering at the Nijmegen University Medical Centre. In 1994, she moved to the Sophia Children’s Hospital at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam. In her current position, Marie-Christine combines clinical work and research focused on stuttering, and the speech and language development of pre-term children. Marie-Christine is frequently invited to present at international symposia. She supervises Masters and PhD students, and she gives workshops on how to deliver two treatments for pre-schoolers who stutter: RESTART-DCM and the Lidcombe Program.
Ann Packman
Ann is a professor at the Australian Stuttering Research Centre. She has worked for over 40 years as a speech pathologist, a university teacher, and as a researcher with people who stutter and their families. Ann was one of the developers of the Lidcombe Program and is passionate about exploring how stuttering treatments for all ages relate to its cause, which is not currently well understood. Ann has developed a causal model of stuttering, and to test this model, the team is currently scanning the brains of newborn babies who are at risk of stuttering.
Master Clinicians
Kristin Chmela
Kristin spends most of her time working with children who stutter. For more than 30 years, she has built the Chmela Fluency Center in the suburban Chicago area, providing services for clients of all ages. Kristin is co-founder and co-director of Camp Shout Out. She was former Chair of the American Board of Fluency and Fluency Disorders, and she collaborated extensively with the Stuttering Foundation on training videos, conferences, and publications. Kristin supervises graduate students, provides training workshops, and is co-author of two books focused on helping school-age children who stutter.
Kurt Eggers
Kurt is a professor at the Speech-Language Pathology Departments of Ghent University and Thomas More University in Belgium, and at the Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology Department at Turku University in Finland. Kurt is chair of the European Clinical Specialization in Fluency Disorders, President of the International Fluency Association, Secretary of the European Fluency Specialists, a member of the International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders Fluency Committee, and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Fluency Disorders. Kurt has worked clinically for many years and his research focuses on the role of temperament, attention, and executive functioning in stuttering, and speech disfluencies in different populations.
Anna Hearne
Anna has more than 20 years of experience working with children and adults who stutter. As a Lidcombe Program Trainers Consortium member, Anna has presented Lidcombe Program and Camperdown Program workshops to speech pathologists in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Her research interests include treatments for school-age children and how to improve their experience at school. Anna is currently a lecturer at Massey University and a clinician at the Stuttering Treatment and Research Trust in Auckland, New Zealand. She teaches the stuttering course at Massey and Auckland University, provides supervision to speech pathologists, and works with people of all ages who stutter.
Gabrielle Hodes
Gabrielle has 26 years of experience working with children who stutter. She introduced the Lidcombe Program to Israel in 2000, and, as a Lidcombe Program Trainers Consortium member, she has presented many Lidcombe Program workshops to speech pathologists in Israel. Gabrielle currently has a private practice in Israel. Aside from her clinical caseload of children and teenagers, Gabrielle provides clinical supervision to speech pathologists nationally, and she is a guest lecturer at Ono Academic College and Tel Aviv University in Israel. Gabrielle organizes professional workshops for speech pathologists and volunteers for the Israeli Stuttering Association by providing community lectures, advice, and support.
Ellen Kelly
Ellen is the Director of Educational Innovation at the Arthur M. Blank Center for Stuttering Education and Research at the University of Texas at Austin, in the United States. She is a board-certified specialist in fluency disorders with over 35 years of clinical, research, and teaching experience focused on developmental stuttering. Ellen’s research focuses on the characteristics of early stuttering, and she has a particular research interest in the temperament characteristics of pre-schoolers who stutter.
Valerie Lim
Valerie has more than 20 years of experience working with children and adults who stutter. As a Lidcombe Program Trainers Consortium member, Valerie has presented Lidcombe Program workshops to speech pathologists in Asia and Australia. Her research interests include assessment and treatment of bilinguals who stutter. Valerie is currently an Associate Professor and Programmer Leader of the Speech and Language Therapy Programme at the Singapore Institute of Technology, where she teaches stuttering, as well as at the National University of Singapore. At these universities, Valerie provides clinical and research supervision to student and practicing speech pathologists.
Verity MacMillan
Verity has been working at the Stuttering Unit in South Western Sydney since 2002, where she is now a stuttering clinical specialist and team leader. She provides intervention for people of all ages who stutter, although her caseload is predominantly paediatric. Verity delivers consultations for Australian speech pathologists and participates in clinical research. She is a member of the International Lidcombe Program Trainers Consortium, and she is an Honorary Clinical Fellow of the Australian Stuttering Research Centre at the University of Technology Sydney.
Stacey Sheedy
Stacey has worked in the field of stuttering since 1998, and she has worked at the Stuttering Unit in South Western Sydney since 2001, where she is a clinical specialist and team leader. Stacey is an Honorary Clinical Fellow of the Australian Stuttering Research Centre at the University of Technology Sydney. Aside from her clinical caseload of children and adults who stutter, Stacey provides nationwide consultations for speech pathologists. She also has a private practice for those who stutter. Stacey is a member of the International Lidcombe Program Trainers Consortium. She regularly presents workshops for clinicians and gives university lectures about stuttering.
Irma Uijterlinde
Irma has been a speech therapist since 1986, and she has specialised in stuttering since 2010. She works at Stottercentrum Utrecht, the Netherlands, with clients between the ages of 2 and 65 years old, conducting individual and group therapy. For children between 2 and 6 years old, she uses the Lidcombe Program or Restart-DCM, which are recommended by the Dutch guidelines for developmental stuttering. Irma is an active member of the Dutch Association of Stuttering Therapists, and she is chair of the Damstégroep for intensive group therapy in the Netherlands. Irma is a member of the Lidcombe Program Trainers Consortium, and she presents Lidcombe Program workshops in the Netherlands.