ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Rehabil. Sci.
Sec. Disability, Rehabilitation, and Inclusion
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fresc.2025.1541059
Social Validation of Post-Treatment Outcomes of Adults Who Stutter Who Participated in the Blank Center CARE Model Treatment: Replication and Extension
Provisionally accepted
- 1Arthur M. Blank Center for Stuttering Education and Research, Austin, United States
- 2The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States
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Purpose: Social validation of treatment outcomes provides external validity of treatment from the perspective of untrained observers. To date, clinical efficacy studies of the Blank Center CARE Model indicate post-treatment gains in communication competence from the perspective of the participants and clinicians. An initial social validation study corroborated positive selfand clinician-rated treatment ratings with ratings from the general public for a single participant.The present study was designed to replicate and extend these findings by assessing clinical outcomes from the perspective of untrained observers across multiple participants and contexts.Method: Ten adults who stutter provided communication samples one week before and after completing the Blank Center CARE Model treatment. A total of 1,110 untrained observers were recruited. Each untrained observer rated only one participant at one timepoint (pre-treatment or post-treatment) in one context (dyad or presentation), and each participant was asked to provide only one rating (communication competence or stuttering severity).Results: A significant interaction indicated that post-treatment gains were observed for communication competence, but not stuttering severity, for both contexts.Conclusions: Present findings provide further social validation of the Blank Center CARE Model of treatment. Untrained observers confirmed that participation in this strengths-based approach significantly enhances communication competence. Notably, these changes were observed regardless of pre-to post-treatment stuttering severity, lending additional support to the premise that communication and fluency are independent constructs.
Keywords: Stuttering, adults, Treatment, Social validation, non-ableist
Received: 06 Dec 2024; Accepted: 02 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Coalson and Byrd. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Geoffrey A Coalson, Arthur M. Blank Center for Stuttering Education and Research, Austin, United States
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