Rate My Professor J Scott Yaruss

J. Scott Yaruss is a professor of Communicative Sciences and Disorders at Michigan State University, where he joined the faculty in 2017. He holds a bachelor’s degree in linguistics and psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and both a master’s degree and a PhD in speech-language pathology from Syracuse University. A board-certified specialist in fluency disorders (BCS-F) and Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (F-ASHA), Yaruss brings more than 30 years of clinical experience as a practicing speech-language pathologist. Prior to MSU, he served on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh and directed the Stuttering Center of Western Pennsylvania at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. He co-founded Stuttering Therapy Resources, Inc. in 2011 to develop practical materials supporting clinicians who treat stuttering.

Yaruss directs the Spartan Stuttering Laboratory at MSU, focusing his research on fluency disorders such as stuttering and cluttering, particularly the lived experiences of individuals who stutter, variability across situations, and broader life impacts. His funded projects include a 2020 NIH/NIDCD R01 grant studying stuttering variability and an NSF grant developing the HeardAI app prototype for recognizing stuttered speech. With over 135 peer-reviewed publications, key works include co-developing the Overall Assessment of the Speaker’s Experience of Stuttering (OASES; Yaruss & Quesal, 2006, 2016), School-Age Stuttering Therapy: A Practical Guide, Early Childhood Stuttering Therapy: A Practical Guide, and Minimizing Bullying for Children Who Stutter (Stuttering Therapy Resources). Recent articles feature Tichenor et al. (2022) on understanding the speaker’s experience of stuttering, Assaneo et al. (2022) on auditory-motor integration and stuttering severity, and Tichenor & Yaruss (2024) validating a research version of OASES-A. Yaruss’s contributions have earned the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Honors of the Association (its highest award), Michigan State University’s William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award (2024), National Stuttering Association’s Speech-Language Pathologist of the Year and Hall of Fame awards, University of Pittsburgh’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Award, and the International Fluency Association’s 2022 Award for Improving the Lives of People Who Stutter (with Robert W. Quesal). He has held roles on the National Stuttering Association Board of Directors and ASHA’s Special Interest Group for Fluency Disorders, and presented hundreds of workshops, seminars, and lectures at local, national, and international conferences.