Special Edition of the Oxford Dysfluency Conference

Special Edition of the Oxford Dysfluency Conference

Journal of Fluency Disorders 37 (2012) 213 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Fluency Disorders Editorial Special Editi...

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Journal of Fluency Disorders 37 (2012) 213

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Journal of Fluency Disorders

Editorial

Special Edition of the Oxford Dysfluency Conference

The papers that make up this special edition of the Journal of Fluency Disorders have arisen from oral and poster presentations at the 9th Oxford Dysfluency Conference (ODC), which took place at St Catherine’s College between 1st and 4th September 2011. The Conference is held every three years with the aim of providing a collegial environment for clinicians, researchers and students to discuss and present their work and to advance the field of dysfluency through the dissemination of research and best clinical practice. We were at capacity, with over 220 attendees from 32 different countries, a truly international delegation. For a personal experience of attending ODC, readers may be interested in Nippold’s (2012) positive reflections. The long standing collaboration between De Montfort University, The Michael Palin Centre, Action for Stammering Children and The Stuttering Foundation was strengthened for the 9th ODC by new relationships with Elsevier as conference organisers and the JFD agreeing to publish a selection of the papers. Thank you to Ashley Craig and Pascal van Lieshout, who, as editors of the JFD have supported and facilitated the production of this Special Edition. One of the wonderful benefits of conferences is the opportunity they provide to present studies, data and findings at the prepublication stage. Researchers have the opportunity to gain feedback about studies in the early stages; evolve their methods in response to questioning; explore their data from different perspectives; and to consider the implications of their findings, an experience which should be dynamic, positive and constructive. Not all papers and workshop presentations are ready or necessarily appropriate for inclusion in a peer-reviewed journal such as this, but I am pleased that those that have made it through to this Special Edition capture the flavour of the conference and I am confident that there will be further papers published in that will have evolved from the presentations at the 9th ODC. This Special Edition deliberately opens with Bretherton-Furness & Ward’s paper about cluttering, to remind us that disorders of fluency are not restricted to stuttering and because there are considerable advancements that are occurring in the research and therapy with this disorder. The papers by Packman and Leahy, O’Dwyer & Ryan are representative of the exciting opportunities that exist when we collaborate and learn from colleagues in allied and indeed alternative professions. The field can be advanced by opening our minds to new possibilities, learning and adapting theories and methods to find a better fit for our clients. The complexity of dysfluency, the clients we work with and their communication needs are explored by papers by Donaher & Richels and Harasym & Langevin. There is a paucity of publications which consider the relationship between dysfluency and co-morbid disorders and I hope that these papers will prompt further research and clinical advancements in these areas. The final paper by Lowe et al. considers eye gaze in adults who stutter. We have much to learn about anxiety, social phobia and cognitive bias, the interaction with dysfluency and the implications for intervention and this paper contributes towards our understanding. Thank you to all the presenters and delegates of the 9th ODC for your contributions, enthusiasm and curiosity. We look forward to working with you again in 2014. Reference Nippold, M. A. (2012). Oxford Dysfluency Conference: An international gathering. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 43, 1.

Sharon Millard (PhD)

0094-730X/$ – see front matter © 2012 Published by Elsevier Inc. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfludis.2012.11.001