Purpose: Stuttering is a fluency disorder characterized by repetitions (sounds, syllables, words, phrases), prolongations, blocks, additions and corrections that can affect the speed and rhythm of speech. Psychological counselors are people who have received at least an undergraduate education from the department of guidance and psychological counseling or from programs considered equivalent to this field. Psychological counselors have roles in preparing a report on stuttering through the guidance service of students with stuttering, making assessments at the Guidance and Research Centers and creating a need-based training program. The knowledge and attitude of psychological counselors who interact with students who stutter is very important. The purpose of this study is to determine the knowledge levels, attitudes and awareness of psychological counselors working in schools about stuttering; It was aimed to compare general attitudes towards stuttering and towards individuals with stuttering and to see if counselors differed in their attitudes according to their gender. Method: The participant group of the research consists of 106 psychological counselors who teach in primary, secondary and high schools in different provinces of Turkey. Personal Information Form and POSHA-E3 were used as data collection tools. After the collected data were transferred to the SPSS-21 program, the percentage/frequency values of the data were calculated, and various statistical analyzes were performed to measure the differences between the groups and the relationships between the variables. Results: As a result of the analysis, 78.3% of the psychological counselors believe that the cause of stuttering is an event that the person fears. 79.2% of the psychological counselors had access to information about stuttering during their school years. All of the psychological counselors think that individuals who stutter should seek help from a speech and language therapist. 54.7% of the psychological counselors stated that they would say slow down or relax while talking to the person who stutters. 63.2% of psychological counselors think that individuals who stutter are shy, 63.2% of the psychological counselors state that they would be upset/worried if they had stuttering. Conclusion: The results also indicate no statistically significant difference between the answers given to the majority of the questions that would determine the attitudes of male and female psychological counselors towards stuttering. Therefore it can be said that gender is not a determining factor in terms of attitudes towards stuttering and individuals with stuttering. However, the female counselors who indicated that they had a neutral attitude towards stutterers were significantly higher than the male counselors.
Keywords
psychological counselor, stuttering, attitude, level of knowledge, POSHA-E3
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