The course covers what is currently understood about the nature of stuttering, and proposes a sustained path to fluency improvement. Nobody can promise a "cure", and there are specific techniques that can be learned from specialized speech pathologists that address momentary interference with fluency. This course aims at core attitudes and strategies that can make techniques more successful and, ultimately, less and less necessary. This approach to stuttering is based on Dr. Colombano's personal study and personal experience as a life-long stutterer in an environment where his profession as a scientist (NASA, retired) demanded constant communication with colleagues and public presentations to large conference audiences. This course is based on the content of a workshop he led at a conference of the National Stuttering Association in 2015.
Dr. Colombano is a retired NASA scientist with a Ph.D. in Biophysical Sciences. He struggled with stuttering in his youth and during most of his career, and he worked on understanding and dealing with the problem, ultimately reaching a level of fluency that is viewed as completely "normal". He is not a SLP (Speech-Language Pathologist) and does not claim to be one, but most SLP's do not specialize in Stuttering Therapy, and there are aspects of stuttering that are addressed more by "Coaching" than "Therapy". These are the aspects he covers and which are complementary to Stuttering Therapy. He has been a member of the National Stuttering Association (NSA), has given talks at their conferences and has been chapter leader in one of their self-help groups in San Francisco. He received year-long training at the Interchange Counseling Institute in San Francisco, and his coaching modality for stutterers has been based on the content of this course.
