The family foundation of Arthur M. Blank has given a $20 million grit to the University of Texas to … [+]
The University of Texas (UT) has received a $20 million grant from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation to establish the Arthur M. Blank Center for Stuttering Education and Research.
The new center will house and expand several existing programs at UT under the direction of Dr. Courtney Byrd, a world-recognized expert on stuttering. Dr. Byrd founded and directs the Michael and Tami Lang Stuttering Institute, the Dr. Jennifer and Emanuel Bodner Developmental Stuttering Laboratory and the Dealey Family Foundation Stuttering Clinic located in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas.
The $20 million will be paid over 10 years from the family foundation of Atlanta Falcons owner and Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank, himself a stutter. “I’m a stutter,” said Blank. “My uncle was a stutterer, my oldest brother is a stutterer. My youngest son, Max [is a stutterer]. Stuttering has been a genetic part of my family for many years.. but my mother was a strong factor in my own life, and she reinforced for me many, many times that what I had to say is important. Regardless of how fluent I was.”
The Blank Center is intended to advance the understanding of the nature and treatment of stuttering, expand evidence-based interventions for children, teenagers and adults, and stock a pipeline of clinicians and researchers who specialize in stuttering. Over the course of the grant, more satellite centers, under Dr. Byrd’s leadership, will be established nationally, and the footprint of Byrd’s signature intensive treatment program, Camp Dream. Speak. Live., is expected to be increased substantially.
“The moment I met Dr. Byrd, I was immediately struck by her intellect and her life-long commitment to advancing the field of stuttering, which she translated into extraordinary proposals that captured her vision to meaningfully impact the stuttering community in the United States and beyond,” Blank said. “Through her impressive research and dedicated practice towards stuttering, I know she will change the world in this area and help as many human beings as she possibly can. She is the perfect person to lead the charge because she’s hard-wired now in her beliefs, and you see it in her results, the participants, the clinical work that she’s doing, the research, the education, all of which we will be connected to through the establishment of this center.”
Traditional treatment for stuttering is focused on improving fluency, but Byrd pioneered a different strategy – a whole-person therapeutic approach that helps children, teenagers and adults grow as confident, effective communicators.
Her holistic model targets core communication competencies, such as maintaining eye contact during episodes of stuttering, using voice and gestures to emphasize the meaning of what the speaker is saying, and maintaining a positive, confident demeanor. She also emphasizes positive psychology concepts such as mindfulness, acceptance and self-compassion. She helps stutterers learn how to minimize their anxiety by, for example, encouraging them to stutter on purpose, desensitizing them to the fear and embarrassment that often accompany speech problems.
Our focus is on the person, not on the stuttering,” Byrd said. “We’re teaching people as young as 3 years of age to adults over the age of 90 you can communicate effectively, and you can do so even if you continue to stutter.”
“This example is one that speaks to the power of what it means to be a top research university,” UT Austin President Jay Hartzell said. “And just hearing Dr. Byrd’s own story about the kinds of interventions and treatments she was exposed to and doing as a student, grad student and then now how the thinking has changed, it gives you a sense of the power of research, the power of using data, the power of learning what the best practices should be in a difficult field like stuttering.”
The prevalence of stuttering is estimated to be a bit less than 1% but the actual incidence of how many people have ever stuttered in their life is closer to 5%, with onset occurring mainly at the preschool age. Empirical studies suggest that up to almost 2.5% percent of children under age five stutter.
October 22 is National Stuttering Awareness Day, and stuttering has received renewed attention this year with the revelation that presidential candidate Joe Biden has struggled with it for most of his life. Biden’s mentoring and encouragement of children who stutter have been an inspiration for many, and the You Tube video of Brayden Harrington, 13, bravely describing how he met Joe Biden and the confidence he gained when he learned that he and Biden were “members of the same club” became an overnight sensation.
