About the presenter: Judy Kuster is an associate professor in Communication Disorders at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She is well-published in Internet resources and is the webmaster for Net Connections for Communication Disorders and Sciences and the Stuttering Home Page as well as the coordinator of this online conference. The following is a revision of an article that first appeared in Speaking Out, the newletter for Speak Easy, Inc. Canada. It is reproduced below to provide readers with information about several non-commercial resources about stuttering that are currently on the Internet. The URLs (web addresses) are typed out rather than linked to keep the reader within the site of the conference. It is suggested that the reader print out the article and explore several of the sites on your own. All of the sites are also linked to the Stuttering Home Page

Internet Resources About Stuttering

by Judith Maginnis Kuster
Minnesota, USA

The Internet has provided opportunities to connect people interested in specific topics in ways that have not been possible in the past and also makes accessible an abundance of information that may have seemed hard to find for anyone depending on libraries and local resources. These connections and easily accessible information have opened new and exciting doors for many persons who stutter. The two primary services on the Internet are those available through email and those available through a web browser. This paper points to several information resources about stuttering that can be found on the Internet.

Discussion Forums - Mailing Lists and Newsgroups

Discussion forums are Internet resources designed to provide opportunity to participate in discussion about a specific topic, or, if you prefer, to watch the discussion. There are several types of discussion forums available on the Internet, including mailing lists, newsgroups, web-based bulletin boards, and chat rooms. There are several in which people interested in stuttering ask/answer questions, offer suggestions, discuss issues, evaluate therapy programs, etc. These forums have become virtual support groups, provide exciting new bridges between professionals and consumers, and are often an important learning opportunity for students and parents of children who stutter.

Mailing lists

Mailing lists (sometimes referred to as "listservs") are discussion forums that require subscription. Some mailing lists are open. Others are available only to members of a certain group. Subscribing to a list assumes that you will follow certain rules of Netiquette as well as the general rules posted by the list owner. To learn more about Netiquette, check

http://www.screen.com/start/guide/netiquette.html

There is no fee to subscribe. When you subscribe to a mailing list, you will receive any messages sent to that address. You can read them and reply to them (if you choose to), either replying to the entire group of subscribers, or to the individual who posted the message. It is important to remember that if you send a message to listserv@rest.of.address, you are talking to a computer. You write to the computer to subscribe to the group, to review who else is subscribed, to check the archives, to signoff, etc. When you send an email message to the stutt-lists@rest.of.address described below (stut-hlp, stutt-l, stutt-x, sid4, stot-ml, wordfree. etc.) you are sending a message to everyone subscribed to that list - sometimes more than 400 people.

Newsgroups

Newsgroups are discussion groups that do not require you to subscribe. You can check in at any time and read what is being discussed. If you wish, you can also post messages. There are thousands of different newsgroups which may or may not be available through your Internet connection. There are several newsgroups which may be of interest to persons who stutter.

Several Web Sites Of Interest To People Who Stutter

While mailing lists and newsgroups provide opportunity to ask questions about and discuss stuttering, world wide web sites provide an abundance of text information for people who stutter, parents who are concerned about their child's disfluency, clinicians, researchers, professors and students who are working with clients or studying about disorders of fluency. In the following non-commercial resources one can find information about stuttering in many different languages, how to reach support organizations around the world, approaches to therapy for children and adults (including ideas about therapy from people who stutter), books and pamphlets about stuttering, an annotated bibliography of recent research, personal stories by people who stutter, opportunities to for children, teens, and adults to find netpals to correspond with, conference papers, links to other information sites, and much, much more.

The following are examples of sites that have been developed by stuttering support organizations. Many contain valuable information about stuttering, including newsletters, conference papers and articles, as well as information about the organization.
Conclusion

The internet is exploding with information. What is provided above are several representative examples of resources on the Internet - not an exhaustive listing. Additional resources are coming online all the time. Some will be excellent and others will try to market quick cures for stuttering. Users of the Internet need to use this resource as they would any other resource, evaluating the information critically, particularly the source and its intended purpose.

September 17, 1998