Hollins Communications Research Institute (HCRI) Founder Ronald L. Webster, Ph.D. talks about what makes HCRI’s approach to stuttering therapy distinct from other stuttering treatment providers.

HCRI is a unique and thoroughly special place that works exclusively on stuttering — a problem that is unique to humans and is one of mankind’s most ancient disorders. At HCRI, we originated the modern, systematic behavioral treatment of stuttering and continue to discover new methods that improve upon quality and reliability in the treatment of stuttering. The key to this progress has been our insistence on dealing with stuttering via objective, physically oriented research and treatment methods.

When we share that HCRI has treated more than 6,300 people who stutter, we are not just reporting an impressive statistic. We are communicating our team’s breadth of experience successfully treating people with an array of stuttering types and severities, as well as a broad range of personalities, attitudes, intellectual capacities, and learning styles.

We have learned how to create well-defined therapy protocols that are effective with very large numbers of persons who stutter. This means that HCRI clinicians have almost certainly successfully treated persons who possessed attributes closely similar to yours.

The number of stutterers we have treated also indicates that HCRI has achieved a depth of knowledge with stuttering that has enabled us to develop new and more powerful treatment methods. Our staff members have worked assiduously on identifying the very small behavior details that actively generate fluent speech in persons who stutter.

We have had the luxury of testing the utility of these behaviors in therapy, refining their form and function, and evaluating the impact that they have in the acquisition and long term retention of fluent speech. As a result, we know what protocols are effective in therapy and what protocols are not effective.

We have also invented new electronics that allow us to evaluate specific properties of speech on a real-time basis, while clients are acquiring fluency skills within our therapy program. Developments in electronic chips have enabled the HCRI team to create new and more useful therapy tools for fluency skills training.

The increases in reliability and objectivity made possible by these advances provide the Institute’s clients with unparalleled precision in the acquisition of fluency skills. This imparts a high level of client confidence in the quality of  new skills and, in turn, makes it easier for people to transfer fluency into new situations and to retain it upon returning home.  

This process of constant observation and constant improvement in the definition of fluency skills has carried HCRI’s stuttering therapy program beyond the levels of precision and utility represented in other forms of stuttering treatment. We have achieved insights into stuttering that we have earned through years of hard work and dedication to the analysis and treatment of this remarkable disorder.

The cumulative results of what we have learned in working with many, many different persons who stutter are incorporated in our new stuttering treatment program, the Hollins Fluency Program: Advanced Speech Reconstruction for Stuttering.

This landmark program provides powerfully effective stuttering therapy protocols that have been validated through the treatment of thousands of persons who stutter. We are able to provide a reliable treatment program in a fixed period of time (12-days), at a fixed cost, and with a known probability of a positive outcome. We have raised the bar when it comes to the treatment of stuttering.

To learn more Roanoke, Viriginia-based HCRI and the nonprofit center’s stuttering treatment program, click here. You may also call HCRI at 540-265-5650 or send an email to admin@stuttering.org for more information.