Ronald Webster, founder and Director of the Hollins Communications Research Institute (HCRI), and Professor of Psychology (Emeritus), Hollins University, leads a major research program on stuttering that has produced a number of significant advancements in the treatment of this difficult and much misunderstood problem. At the present time, Dr. Webster and his colleagues are conducting research on the relationships between sensory newly discovered feedback anomalies and the disturbed speech motor activities in stuttering. Additional research is in process that examines new methods by which direct speech motor evaluations and speech motor training can be accomplished over the internet.

His extensive work on stuttering is based on the theory that difficulties in the stutterer's reception of his own speech sounds is the primary cause of stuttering. His research on stuttering therapy has brought fluent speech to the majority of the 4,700 stutterers who have undergone speech retraining at HCRI.