Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Phone: 828-227-3291
Email: shapiro@email.wcu.edu
Office Address: HHS 188
Education:
• Ph.D., Indiana University (Bloomington), 1984
• M.S., University of Vermont (Burlington), 1977
Biography:
Having begun as an Assistant Professor at WCU in 1984, I was honored by the appointment as WCU’s Robert Lee Madison Distinguished Professor in 2008. I continue to enjoy teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, providing clinical service and instruction to people who stutter and their families, engaging in research related to stuttering and professional preparation, and serving the university and larger community. I am thrilled that my work has provided opportunities to travel throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa for the purposes of teaching, clinical service, and research. In fall 2010, I introduced a graduate elective (International Perspectives on CSD), one component of which was traveling with graduate students to work with people who stutter and their clinicians and families at Obcanské sdružení LOGO (Brno, Czech Republic).
As a faculty, we remain busy and involved in our respective disciplines. Several organizations are close to my heart, particularly the International Fluency Association (IFA) and the International Stuttering Association (ISA). I am a Board Recognized Specialist in Fluency Disorders and a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. I was honored to receive IFA’s Award of Distinction for Outstanding Clinician and was elected IFA President in 2012. I served on the Inaugural Specialty Board on Fluency Disorder and participated in all of the World Congresses of the International Fluency Association and the African Stuttering Conferences. With a colleague from France in Cameroon (2005) and Burkina Faso (2008), I provided clinical service and instruction to people who stutter from over 20 African nations. My current research continues to address multinational perspectives on stuttering intervention and is expanding to the assumptions and practices of indigenous healers and treatment changes that have occurred in former Soviet countries. I am happy to announce that my book (Stuttering Intervention: A Collaborative Journey to Fluency Freedom, 2nd ed., PRO-ED) was released in 2011.
I think you will see that our department is comprised not only of bright students and faculty, but people who work hard, have fun, and do well at doing good. I might add that I live with my wife, Kay, and we have two children, Sarah and Aaron, who are now young adults. When not at work, I enjoy family time and hiking, camping, fly fishing, bicycling, and traveling.