The "Iowa Way" revisited

This paper attempts to bridge the gap between past and present stuttering therapy approaches. Specifically, the ideas and methods of Wendell Johnson and Dean Williams are compared to current approaches used in treating mental illness and communication disorders in which there is an emphasis on focusing on what is “right” with the individual and spending less time focusing on the “disorder”. There is particular emphasis on tying Johnson's and Williams’ overall philosophy to modern psychological approaches rooted in “Positive Psychology”, to highlight how these early ideas in stuttering therapy may help us to discover the common factors that underlie the success of several different stuttering therapy approaches, independent of the specific techniques employed. It is proposed that future research on clinical efficacy in stuttering should use focused hypotheses techniques to investigate common factors that make therapy effective across individuals and therapy approaches.Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (1) summarize the basic philosophy of the “Iowa” approach to stuttering as laid out by Wendell Johnson and Dean Williams; (2) describe current therapeutic techniques that incorporate “positive psychology”; (3) discuss possible common factors that influence therapy outcome that are independent of the therapeutic technique employed.