iHOPE Stuttering Lab
Steven Moates, SLP.D., CCC-SLP, CHSE, CCAT
Immersive Research in Hope, Openness, Participation, and the Experience of Stuttering
A research environment dedicated to understanding stuttering as a lived human experience — and preparing clinicians to honor that experience fully.
We study not what stuttering does to speech — but what it means to live, speak, and flourish as a person who stutters, and how we prepare clinicians to honor that entire experience.
Theoretical Foundation
Three Frameworks,
One Integrated Lens
Every research question in the iHOPE Lab is anchored by three frameworks working in concert. Together, they ensure that our research attends to the full human experience of stuttering — from body function to spiritual meaning.
Explore the FrameworkInternational Classification of Functioning
Provides the structural scaffold for research. The lab moves beyond body-function measurement to focus on participation, activity, and contextual factors.
Person-Centered Care
Ensures that people who stutter define what matters in their own communication lives. The lab does not assume a hierarchy of speaking situations — it asks the participant.
Hope, Openness, Participation, Experience
Attends to spiritual meaning, purpose, community belonging, and personal identity that shape how individuals experience stuttering. The lab operationalizes HOPE as a measurable construct.
Primary Research Focus
Clinician Preparation and Spirituality
While ASHA mandates culturally responsive care — which includes religion and spirituality — SLP graduate training programs lack structured, evidence-based methods to teach these competencies. This gap is particularly acute in stuttering treatment, where identity and existential meaning are central.
Our Commitment
People Who Stutter as Co-Investigators
Research instruments and study designs are developed with, not for, people who stutter — ensuring ecological and cultural validity from inception.
About the Lab
Distinctive Contributions
What Sets This Lab Apart
Operationalization of the HOPE framework as a clinical research instrument — moving from philosophy to measurable outcome.
AI-driven speaking scenarios that replicate real participation demands, producing data that self-report tasks cannot generate.
The first systematic investigation into how SLP graduate students understand and integrate spirituality into stuttering care.