Australian professor Mark Onslow speaks at UW-Whitewater Nov. 1

October 30, 2006

Stuttering is a disorder that is characterized by frequent repetitions of words or parts of words, disrupting the smooth flow of speech.

Well-known for the development of a specialized program for early intervention of stuttering with young children, the Lidcombe Program of Early Stuttering Intervention will feature professor Mark Onslow from 5-8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 1 at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Onslow will be present as a guest lecturer for the department of communication disorders and sciences in McGraw 101.

Onslow is the director of the Australian Stuttering Research Centre. He is a principal research fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, an adjunct professor at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and an honorary professor at the University of Queensland, Australia. Onslow?s core research interests include stuttering treatment research, measurement of stuttering, anxiety in stuttering, and causal theory about stuttering.

His presentation will provide an overview of the treatment of stuttering with reference to its origins, procedures, evidence base, and planned future development. The presentation will begin with a discussion of the context of the Lidcombe Program with reference to other treatments for early stuttering that evidence practitioners might select.

Onslow leads a team of researchers who were recently awarded a $4.1 million grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council for stuttering treatment research. He is also a member of the international Lidcombe Program Trainers Consortium, and has taught undergraduate courses internationally. Onslow is in constant demand as an international speaker, having presented more than 60 invited international symposia. He has more than 200 publications dealing with stuttering, including journal articles, books and chapters.

The lecture is sponsored by a grant from the Australian government and the

UW-Whitewater distance education department will be transmitting the lecture to all of the Wisconsin universities that have a communication disorder program, including UW-River Falls, UW-Eau Claire, UW-Stevens Point, UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee.