International Fluency Association (IFA) Joint World Congress

Project Summary This grant seeks support for graduate student and early career faculty travel to attend the 10th World Congress on Fluency Disorders, to be held July 22-25, 2021 at the Montreal Conference Centre, Montreal, Canada The IFA World Congresses have a long and distinguished history going back almost 30-years, and have long attracted both senior and junior researchers and clinician attendance.

It publishes proceedings, and many Congress contributions have gone on to both publication and citation in other research publications. For 2021, the World Congress continues to pair with other major organizations to broaden participation and impact.

Although financially enabled by commitments of the International Fluency Association, it will engage with: the International Cluttering Association, the International Stuttering Association (representing consumers and families world-wide) and a Francophile consumer association specializing in fluency disorders (Association Bégaiement Communication (ABC)).

This broad inclusion, together with the traditionally research- and clinical-service oriented IFA, is meant to strengthen the development of Person-Centered-Care approaches most closely meeting the needs of PWS.

The need for junior researcher attendance at the World Congress is of significant importance, given the declining numbers of faculty researchers in communication sciences and disorders, in the United States and abroad, and in fluency disorders specifically.

Past meetings have greatly contributed to the development of early career investigators who have gone on to achieve well in their research, publication and funding careers.

This meeting will also offer students and early career faculty a workshop to develop grantsmanship and publication skills.

It will also host a workshop designed to mediate consumer group, researcher and clinician viewpoints on research needs in fluency disorders.

Taken together, this meeting of dedicated researchers, clinicians and patient advocates should result in high quality proceedings and peer-reviewed research publications.

It should also facilitate long-term health impacts in understanding and treating fluency disorders that will continue the positive contributions made by IFA Congresses over the past three decades.