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Ali Berquez, MSc, PG Dip CT (Oxon), BRIEF Cert. SF Practice, Clinical Lead for Children at the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering in London, UK, joins Sara MacIntyre, M.A., CCC-SLP to discuss the process of desensitization for parents of children who stutter. This discussion is based on a paper in AJSLP from 2018 written by Ali Berquez and Elaine Kelman, "Methods in Stuttering Therapy for Desensitizing Parents of Children Who Stutter." Desensitization is typically discussed in relation to working with individuals who stutter themselves; however, Ali shares how critical it is to incorporating desensitization work with parents as well.  Ali shares clinical activity examples, rationales, antidotes, stories, and more!

Links mentioned during episode:

• Michael Palin Centre Training Opportunities
• Stuttering Foundation Course with Elaine Kelman and Ali Berquez
• Stambassadors

Bio: Ali Berquez is Clinical Lead for Children at the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering in London, UK, where she has worked since 2000. Her role includes working with clients of all ages including adults who stutter; teaching nationally and internationally (including the Stuttering Foundation’s annual Eastern Workshop in Boston), writing, offering clinical supervision and contributing to research projects. She has collaborated with Professor Patricia Zebrowski and her team in the USA over the past few years to explore the expectations of young people and parents from therapy using Solution Focused principles. Ali is a Study Day Coordinator for the UK’s National Clinical Excellence Network in Dysfluency and a certified European Fluency Specialist.