Nola Radford
Nola Radford completed her doctorate at the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee, emphasizing child language development and disorders. Before retirement, she had several faculty appointments at various institutions, emphasizing clinical preparation for undergraduate and graduate students. She has also worked with speech-language pathologists in public schools to improve therapy implementation and outcomes for children and adolescents with language, speech sound, and fluency disorders. Her work with children who stutter dates to 1992. She began work to improve resources available for public school speech-language pathologists working with children who stutter while an associate professor at Southeast Missouri State University. Her first publication, “Smooth Talking,” is not synonymous with the singular approach to speech training, Smooth Speech and Cognitive Behavior Therapy Program as developed by Ashley Craig and colleagues working in the 1990s. However, the suggested therapy activities include work that falls under the umbrella of cognitive-based therapies.
Her publications include Smooth Talking: A Curriculum for School-age Children Who Stutter (2nd Edition), published by Plural Publishing in 2010. The second Edition of Smooth Talking is wholly revised, emphasizing activities that may be incorporated easily in public schools and used in conjunction with other materials. The materials are adaptable for outcome measures about surface features of stuttering, attitudes, and emotions, as well as teacher and parent counseling. Clinicians may revise any suggested goals based on current school district or facility guidelines and professional practice standards.
Dr. Radford maintains the Certificate of Specialty Recognition in Fluency Disorders, with the lifetime member status in 2021. Her previous service has included Community Outreach for the American Board of Fluency and Fluency Disorders (ABFFD) 2020-2021 and collaborative group language intervention services for public school children. She has previously developed and implemented group language intervention (i.e., after-school intense group training at university clinics). Additional interests include teaching and scholarship in higher education. She continues to lecture part-time and teach undergraduate and graduate courses about communication development and disorders in children and adolescents. She recently taught at the University of Kentucky, College of Health Sciences, Communication Sciences and Disorders.