Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups (Perspectives) specializes in bridging research and practice, providing SIG affiliates with information that they can use in the clinic, classroom, and more. The October issue brings readers two forums focusing on topics that speech-language pathologists (SLPs) may encounter in their day-to-day practice: (1) voice and upper airway disorders and (2) cluttering.

For future SLPs looking to specialize in voice and upper airway disorders, the path may seem steep. A forum from Special Interest Group (SIG) 3, Voice and Upper Airway Disorders, offers a variety of perspectives for students and experienced SLPs looking for a specialization. Then, a forum from SIG 4, Fluency and Fluency Disorders, offers the latest on cluttering for clinicians.

Pathways to Specializing in Voice and Upper Airway Disorders

In the introduction to the SIG 3 forum, Guest Editor Nathaniel Sundholm writes that students who wish to specialize in voice or upper airway disorders “are often left confused, overwhelmed, and lacking direction for where to devote their time and attention” (Sundholm, 2022, p. 1312). Sundholm suggests that the articles in the forum explore components that can contribute to success while acknowledging that no pathway to specialization is the same.

Three articles discuss the most common pathway to voice specialization today, a voice-specialized clinical fellowship. First, Morton provides her perspective as an early career SLP who recently completed a fellowship. Then, Braden discusses her experiences as a mentor in a clinical fellowship program and describes the qualities that make a successful mentor. Later, Barkmeier-Kraemer and Hapner end the forum with an update from a grassroots committee of experts who collaborated over the course of 3 years to define core features of a clinical fellowship specializing in voice and upper airway disorders.

Elsewhere in the forum, Koenig shares how she became a specialist in the absence of a dedicated fellowship, discussing resources available to any SLP looking to specialize in voice or upper airway disorders. For more experienced SLPs looking to specialize in voice or upper airway disorders, Schneider offers a pathway—including developing competencies and finding mentors.

Clinical Views on Cluttering

The second forum, presented by SIG 4 Editor John Tetnowski, presents the latest clinical articles on cluttering. Common features of cluttering include rapid or irregular speech rate, atypical pauses, deleting or collapsing syllables, and other symptoms that result in breakdowns in speech clarity and/or fluency. Currently, awareness of cluttering is being shared with the general public through social media and to future SLPs though inclusion in curricula and textbooks.

The forum opens with a study by Scaler Scott et al. comparing how listeners rated the speech of people who clutter and score normally on standardized language tests with the speech of controls who did not clutter. Then, a case study by Van Zaalen and Strangis showed the speech, language, cognitive, and emotional effects of cluttering in an adolescent.

In the next article, Pap measured cluttering disfluencies when people who cluttered talked to people they did and didn’t know—and to those who did and did not clutter. The forum closes with an article by Meza and Scaler Scott collecting observations from three leaders in the cluttering community about supporting people who clutter.

The Latest in Clinical Practice

Both of these forums, along with more than 20 more articles that help bridge the gap between research and clinical practice, are available in the latest issue of Perspectives! Perspectives is available for free to all affiliates of ASHA’s SIGs, and these forum articles are free to all readers for the next 2 weeks, so be sure to check them out soon.

We’d like to thank Drs. Sundholm and Tetnowski and all of the authors for their work on these two forums in Perspectives. Be sure to check out Perspectives regularly for the latest research that you can use in your day-to-day work!

Explore the Forums

Pathways to Specializing in Voice and Upper Airway Disorders: Multiple Perspectives

Barkmeier-Kraemer, J. M., & Hapner, E. R. (2022). Considerations for specialty education in voice and upper airway disorders. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 7(5), 1329–1334. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_PERSP-22-00065

Braden, M. N. (2022). Mentoring a voice-specialized clinical fellowship. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 7(5), 1317–1321. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_PERSP-22-00032

Koenig, E. (2022). Becoming a voice specialist in the absence of a dedicated fellowship. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 7(5), 1322–1324. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_PERSP-22-00068

Morton, M. E. (2022). Completing a voice-specialized clinical fellowship. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 7(5), 1313–1316. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_PERSP-21-00338

Schneider, S. L. (2022). Getting up to speed: A framework for experienced speech-language pathologists to develop voice and upper airway competencies. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 7(5), 1325–1328. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_PERSP-22-00013

Sundholm, N. (2022). Introduction: Voice-specialized clinical fellowship. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 7(5), 1312. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_PERSP-22-00104

Clinical Views on Cluttering

Meza, S., & Scaler Scott, K. (2022). A conversation with three cluttering community leaders: A preliminary sampling of perspectives. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 7(5), 1381–1390. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_PERSP-21-00248

Pap, J. (2022). Clustering of disfluencies in informal conversations of people with cluttering. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 7(5), 1370–1380. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_PERSP-21-00143

Scaler Scott, K., Gurtizen, E., Giacumbo, K., & Kisenwether, J. (2022). A perceptual study of communication effectiveness in cluttering. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 7(5), 1347–1356. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_PERSP-22-00003

Van Zaalen, Y., & Strangis, D. (2022). An adolescent confronted with cluttering: The story of Johan. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 7(5), 1357–1369. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_PERSP-21-00267