Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Dave - Problems in ISA


There was a brief presentation during the ISA workshop on the possibility of a joint IFA-ISA congress in the future from the current Chair of ISA, Benny Ravid. I noticed Suzana Jelčić Jakšić (one of the board members of ISA) looking surprised at this. Although she obviously knew that this general idea had been floating around for several years, she knew nothing of the current discussions and plans. In fact the ISA workshop did not run particularly smoothly - it looked like there were some communication difficulties in ISA, with some of the other presenters not having been briefed by Benny Ravid, who was running the workshop, about their role. I also noticed a rather snide remark from Benny to Suzana when he put up a slide of ISA members, with his name at the top of the list and Suzana’s at the bottom and said “there’s me at the top and you at the bottom.” It definitely seemed like he was intending to insult her. So I’ve got an interview with Suzana coming up where you can find out more about what’s going on in ISA, or maybe what’s not going on!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

who is benny ravid?
what is the ISA?
What is the difference between ISA and IFA?

Dave Rowley said...

The ISA is the International Stuttering Association, made up of national associations for people who stutter, normally self-help groups. It organises the World Congress for People Who Stutter. Benny Ravid is its chair. The IFA (International Fluency Association) is comprised mostly of speech therapists and researchers in stuttering.