Rita D. Thurman MS, CCC, BCS-F

Thurman has worked with children and adults with communication disorders for 40 years and is a Board Certified Specialist in Fluency Disorders. She is on the Board of Directors for the American Board of Fluency and Fluency Disorders. She is licensed in the states of Montana and North Carolina. She received her Master of Science degree in Communication Disorders in 1977 from Utah State University. Ms. Thurman has worked in the public schools, private clinics, and hospitals in Utah, Idaho, Illinois, and North Carolina, and has been in private practice in Raleigh since 1985.

Ms. Thurman has presented numerous workshops on evaluation and treatment for children and adults who stutter. Venues for her presentations include the North Carolina Speech and Language Convention, Montana Speech and Hearing Association, the NC Department of Public Instruction’s Exceptional Children Conference, the American Speech and Hearing Association’s Fluency Leadership Conference, the American Speech and Hearing Association annual convention (invited speaker) and the National Stuttering Association (NSA) annual convention.

Ms. Thurman is an NSA Adult and Teen Chapter leader, in addition to sponsoring an annual, state workshop of FRIENDS: The National Association of Young People Who Stutter. Ms. Thurman was awarded the 2012 North Carolina Speech, Hearing, and Language Association’s "Speech-Language Pathologist of the Year" Clinical Achievement Award for her work in providing services to people who stutter. She was awarded the National Stuttering Association's Speech-Language Pathologist of the year in 2015.