The Friends One-Day Conference is a wonderful opportunity for families to come together and learn more about stuttering, supporting their child, and to begin building community. Children’s programming is activity-based and focuses on exploring attitudes and emotions, increasing understanding of stuttering, and instilling a greater sense of confidence — while making FRIENDS! SLPs and students will learn more about stuttering, current therapies, and the support available for those who stutter.

Financial assistance is available. If you would like to attend this one-day conference but you are experiencing financial difficulties and find the cost prohibitive, please reach out to Sara MacIntyre at: sara@friendswhostutter.org 

Amanda Hampton Wray, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Innovation in the Department of Communication Science & Disorders at University of Pittsburgh. Her research program examines the development of brain functions mediating language and attention using a multimodal approach, including behavioral and neurophysiological measures. She focuses on factors that affect and support neural processing in complex environments, with a focus on developmental stuttering. 

Caryn Herring, M.S., CCC-SLP is a person who stutters, a speech-language pathologist, and a doctoral candidate at Michigan State University. Caryn met Lee in 2010, and has been involved with Friends ever since. Caryn served on the Board of Directors as the Chairperson for 5 years and is proud to follow in Lee’s footsteps as the current Executive Director of Friends. Caryn’s research interests include the process of desensitization for people who stutter, reducing adverse impact, and the role of voluntary stuttering. She has also taught and clinically supervised both undergraduate and graduate students at MSU, The University of Pittsburgh, and Duquesne University.   

Allison Ladavat, M.A., CCC-SLP is a person who stutters, a speech-language pathologist, and the mother of 3 children. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA, where she provides holistic stuttering therapy to people of all ages. She has previously worked as a clinical instructor at Duquesne University. Through the Friends organization, Allison helped to develop a partnership with the Pittsburgh Penguins Foundation, coordinating unique experiences at each Penguins home game for local children who stutter. 

Sara MacIntyre, M.A., CCC-SLP is the One-Day Conference Director for Friends. Sara owns YouSpeak, LLC where she provides stuttering therapy in Philadelphia and virtually, as well as consulting services. Sara is an adjunct instructor at Teachers College, Columbia University in their graduate program and is the producer and moderator for Virtual Learning by Stuttering Foundation and the Stuttering Foundation Podcast. She is a board member for Friends: The National Association of Young People Who Stutter.

Seth E. Tichenor, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is a person who stutters, a speech-language pathologist, and an assistant professor at Duquesne University. His research interests include better understanding and predicting individual differences in the experience of stuttering (stammering), understanding how adverse impact related to the condition develops, and determining how moments of stuttering occur in speech. He is currently investigating the role cognitive-affective processes have on speech production and language formulation processes in stuttering and non-clinical populations. He also practices clinically and is actively involved in clinical education regarding stuttering assessment and treatment.