Sharing stories: life history narratives in stuttering research.

The life experiences of people who stutter (PWS) have not featured prominently in research. Historically, the profession of speech and language therapy has amassed data and developed its theory of stuttering within a positivistic frame. As a consequence, the existing over-arching theory of research and practice does not engage holistically with the dynamic personal, socio-cultural and political contexts of the individual who stutters. Therefore a conceptual shift is required in ontology, epistemology and methodology underpinning the knowledge construction process. The use of the life history narratives as a research tool is promoted. An exploratory study of a single participant is presented to illuminate the methodological approach and emerging theoretical constructs.

The curriculum of practice: a conceptual framework for speech-language therapy and audiology practice with a black African first language clientele.

This paper discusses the use of a conceptual framework (i.e., the curriculum of practice) to guide the transformation of professional practice toward equitable service provision, rooted in a research finding that South African Speech-Language Therapy & Audiology has a favourable service bias toward White English/Afrikaans first language speakers (Pillay, 1997b). Three perspectives of practice are discussed, i.e., the official, espoused and actual perspectives. Also, the various elements of practice are reviewed, and include clinical practice activities, resources and their utilization, professional education curricular and professional policies. It is asserted that re-constructing the profession's knowledge base in a presently (1996-) transforming South Africa, mostly requires the use of a critical (versus, for e.g., a scientific) paradigm.