Inquiry into education and training, attitudes and (possible) clinical pratices on stuttering of Federazione logopedisti italiani (FLI) members

This study originates from Stella's (2014) and Lazzari's (2015) graduate thesis, later combined into Inquiry into Stuttering in Italy: Characteristics of the public service (regarding university education and health care) and characteristics of logopedic practice (Stella et al., 2016). They have shown strong regional differences among public services offered to People Who Stutter (PWS), and an inadequate training on stuttering at academic courses in Speech and Language Therapy. As for the services provided to PWS, assessment resulted as more performed than treatment, and children and teens more assisted than adults. With respect to the Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs) practice, undergraduate and postgraduate education and training on stuttering have been shown to be generally inadequate, and a lack of standardized instruments for the Italian population emerged. The present work wants to deepen the aforementioned issues, and it also intends to investigate the attitude of Italian SLTs towards stuttering and PWS, through an on-line questionnaire sent to FLI members (Federazione Logopedisti Italiani). Many international studies had been carried out regarding clinical attitudes toward stuttering, but such a topic had never been investigated before in Italy. The results confirm the ones found by Stella and Lazzari, and add, in agreement with international literature, that Italian SLTs share at least in part a negative stereotype towards stuttering. Furthermore, there are multiple and different opinions and practices regarding stuttering treatment, many of them not evidence-based, rather then structured and evidence-based programs. The present study also brings to light a difficulty in dealing with PWS, both from SLTs and from teachers.