Speak Out February 2021 DIGITAL EDITION

PROFILE

Reflections on a 40+ year career SUSAN BLOCK REFLECTS ON HER 40 YEAR ACADEMIC CAREER AND SHARES INSIGHTS IN WHAT DRIVES HER IN HER WORK IN STUTTERING AND STUDENT EDUCATION. With Mr Vince Borg, Dr Brenda Carey and Ms Mala Ferdinando members of the Speech Pathology Association of Australia as a Fellow. She serves on the SPA Ethics board, is a Life Member of the Australian Speak Easy Association and an Honorary Adjunct Associate Professor at La Trobe University. Susan was invited by the Victorian Stuttering Interest Group to reflect on her 40+ year career as she moved to an Honorary Adjunct position at La Trobe University. She was interviewed by Mala Ferdinando, Vince Borg and Brenda Carey. Q Why stuttering? Why has it been, and still is, your passion? I enjoyed public speaking at school and wanted to help people who could not speak easily. Then as a speech pathology student I had a wonderful clinical placement where I saw impressive results with people who stuttered. I loved talking to people who became more confident as they became more fluent and I really saw that we could make a difference to their lives.

Susan Block is a speech pathologist and academic from Melbourne. She was responsible for the academic and clinical education in stuttering for undergraduate and post-graduate speech pathology students at La Trobe University for more than 40 years and at James Cook University for 13 years. Her student-delivered intensive treatment program has been replicated nationally and internationally. Her participation in a variety of research trials has provided students with an impressive range of clinical and research experiences. She has collaborated on multi-site trials and she has been invited to teach in speech pathology programs at universities around Australia and internationally. As a result of her collaborations, Susan has held honorary positions at the Australian Stuttering Research Centre (ASRC), The Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and James Cook University. She now serves on the Course Advisory committees for the Speech Pathology disciplines at the Central Queensland University and Charles Darwin University. For her work in stuttering and student education, Susan has been recognised by

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Speak Out | February 2021