Stuttering is a multi-dynamic disorder and various aspects need to be changed in stuttering treatment. In particular, people who stutter (PWS) may have negative feelings and attitudes due to long history of negative responses of other people. Counseling is an important aspect of stuttering treatment and speech-language pathologists (SLPs) need to be able to provide counseling to PWS. However, even though PWS may need help from more specialized counselors, there is little known on the perception of Korean counselors toward stuttering. Therefore, the primary purposes of the current study were to explore treatment experiences of Korean psychological counselor and their perception toward stuttering. Moreover, the current study tried to determine whether such perception would be different according to career history, counseling experiences of PWS, having friends or relatives who stutter or not, and academic history.
A total of 67 counselors took part in the current study. They completed questionnaires regarding their treatment experiences, perceived knowledge level, confidence, and difficulty in counseling PWS, and Alabama Stuttering Knowledge Test, Bipolar Adjective Scales, and Public Opinion of Human Attitudes-Stuttering (POSHA-S).
The results showed that about 34 percent of the participants had counseling experiences of PWS in the past 5 years. In addition, the participants showed negative perception toward stuttering, and there were more differences in their perception according to private experiences of stuttering such as having friends or relatives who stutter than other factors. These results showed that there would be more chances of collaboration between SLPs and professional psychological counselors in stuttering treatment, and there need to be more changes in the perception of such counselors toward stuttering.