Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Speakers at IFA 2009

The list of the key note speakers of the International Fluency Association (IFA) congress in Brazil in August 2009 is public: see here.

Claudia de Andrade: The familial profile of stuttering

(Department of Physiotherapy, Communication Sciences & Disorders and Occupational Therapy, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil)

Elizabeth Harrison: Technology in stuttering treatment for children and adults

(Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia)

Luc De Nil: Multiple facets of stuttering: Insights from brain and behavioural research

(Department of Speech-Language Pathology, University of Toronto, Canada)

Suzana Jelcic Jaksic: Comparing the needs of consumers in developing and developed countries

(Children's Hospital, Zagreb, Croatia; ISA)

Registration for talks and seminars is February 28th, so you still have time to get your proposal done. I am not sure whether I will attend or not. It is a lot of money to go to Brazil, and I am self-financed. I probably decide in the last minute, as usual.

Luc de Nil is the only scientist talking. He is a professor in Canada and has done a lot of brain imaging research on stuttering. He will talk on brain and behavioural research. Certainly his brain research is interesting; his students and research staff currently look at dual tasks performance in stutterers. However, I am more sceptical on the recent research on temperament which he supervises; I hope he is not going in that direction in his talk. Then, we have Elizabeth Harrison talking on technology in treatment, which could be interesting. However, I hope she is not diverting to Lidcombe outcome research on which she worked and which she not convincingly defended in an on-line debate I recently had with Susan Block: see here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

how much would it cost for you to attend the IFA? How is IFA diff. from ISA World Congress. I thought IFA is meant for professionals and researchers....will there be posters?

Most people do not get to go to IFA or ISA, so would be nice if someone goes and gives a very very detailed report.

Tom Weidig said...

The flight is the most expensive: about 1300 Euros (the last time I checked), maybe a bit cheaper if you shop around. And then the registration fees is 275 $ which is a good deal for "consumers" i.e. people who stutter. Plus accommodation in Rio. I guess no less than 50$ per day, so at least 250$. So I would guess it would cost me about 2000 Euros / Dollars. Plus my holidays. Of course, I can take the opportunity to visit Brazil before or after....

You are right IFA is more focused on professionals, associations and researchers, but there are also many participants who stutter. Its focus is not so much on science but on therapy and therapy research, but also scientists attend.