National Stuttering Association
The National Stuttering Association (NSA) is a United States support group organization for people who stutter. Its headquarters are in New York City.[1]
 | |
| Abbreviation | NSA |
|---|---|
| Predecessor | National Stuttering Project |
| Formation | January 1977 |
| Founder | Bob Goldman, Michael Sugarman |
| Founded at | California |
| Type | NGO |
| Legal status | 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization |
| Purpose | Activism |
| Headquarters | New York, New York, U.S. |
| Coordinates | |
Region | United States |
| Fields | Stuttering, Speech disorders |
Executive Director | Tammy Flores |
Chair of the Board | Kristine Short |
| Website | westutter.org |
The NSA was founded by Bob Goldman and Michael Sugarman as the National Stuttering Project in California in 1977.[2] Currently the NSA functions through a network of more than 100 local adult, teen, and children's chapters nationwide.[3]
The NSA sponsors regional workshops, youth and family events, education seminars for speech-language pathologists, and an Annual Conference, which hosts an average of 900 attendees. The NSA also publishes educational resources, such as pamphlets and booklets about stuttering, as well as a quarterly newsletter: Letting Go.[1]
In November 2002, in the year of the NSA's 25th anniversary, the Association received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.[3]
The NSA played a key role in establishing the National Stuttering Awareness Week in 1988.
Annual conference
The NSA hosts a conference in the summer every year in the first week of July in cities throughout the United States. These cities included Scottsdale, AZ in 2009, Cleveland, OH in 2010, Fort Worth, TX in 2011, and St. Petersburg, FL in 2012, again in Scottsdale in 2013, and Washington, DC in 2014.[4] In the future conferences will be in Chicago in 2015 and California in 2016. The 2016 conference was a joint conference with the International Stuttering Association. The conference began with a two-day research symposium with presentations and workshops by experts in the field, which is then followed by a four-day general conference which features workshops led by the experts and by volunteers, as well as a keynote. The keynote was presented in 2011 by David Seidler, screenwriter of The King's Speech and in 2013 by Trumaine McBride, a cornerback in the National Football League.
Hall of Fame
The NSA Hall of Fame
- 1996: John Ahlbach, NSA Executive Director 1981–1995[5]
- 1998: Michael Sugarman[5]
- 2000: John Paul Larkin (Scatman John)[5]
- 2001: Vivian Sheehan[5]
- 2002: Eugene Cooper[6][5]
- 2003: Lee Reeves NSA Chairman of the Board of Directors 1997–2003[5][7]
- 2004: Annie Glenn
- 2005: Marty Jezer[8][9]
- 2007: Annie Bradberry, NSA Executive Director 1997–2003[5]
- 2009: Judith Kuster
Other inductees include: Fred Murray, Mel Hoffman, Rich Wells, Herb Goldberg, Dorvan Breitenfeldt, John C. Harrison, Russ Hicks, Nina Reeves, and Jim McClure
See also
References
- NSA webpage: "General Info", "About the NSA"
- History of the NSA
- Distinguished Service Award Nomination for the National Stuttering Association
- NSA Webpage: "Annual Conference""
- NSA 24th Annual Conference (2007), pp.56–57
- NSA: What's New: August 16, 2005
- NSA: What's New: August 5, 2005
- Marty Jezer Memoria