Author: Sydney Flowers

McCristal recipient Husain has personal connection for her research studies

Oct. 22, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Fatima Husain is the 2022 recipient of the King J. and Marjorie R. McCristal Distinguished Scholar in the College of Applied Health Sciences

Most researchers have an inspiration for their research line. It might be an experience, something they read, or even a TV show or movie. For Fatima Husain, it was more personal.

Dr. Husain, a professor in the Dept. of Speech and Hearing Science in the College of Applied Health Sciences, uses a combination of computational modeling, brain imaging experiments, and behavioral experiments to research hearing and speech perception, as well as the disorders associated with them, such as hearing loss and tinnitus.

When she was a Ph.D student at Boston University, Husain said she had a family member who was dealing with a sudden hearing loss.

“I was already thinking about the brain and sounds, and yet I had not come across tinnitus. I remember being in this [ear, nose and throat doctor’s] office and asking questions. ‘And could it be this? Could it be that?’ And you know how some physicians can be, and he said, ‘Why don’t you find out for yourself?”’

So she did.

“I was always trying to find out more about tinnitus,” she said. “I think it took me another five years after that to come to a place where I could start doing research. I started studying in my own time little by little and asking questions. What stood out to me was how little people knew about it. I hope we know more about it now, but still very little is known; compared to even hearing loss, it is very much more challenging and more complicated, which also allows a space for someone like me who is not a clinician, to provide answers and help people.”

That combination of inquisitiveness, persistence and hard work is one of the many reasons Husain is the 2022 recipient of the King J. and Marjorie R. McCristal Distinguished Scholar in the College of Applied Health Sciences, the most prestigious recognition of scholarly achievement given by the college.

Husain joined the Department of Speech and Hearing Science as an assistant professor in 2008. She earned her Ph.D in cognitive and neural systems at BU and joined the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, part of the National Institutes of Health, first as a postdoctoral fellow and then as a research fellow.

At the NIDCD, Husain worked with a researcher who had worked in aging research and was coming to deafness and communication disorders.

“He needed someone who was more interested in sounds than in aging or vision,” she said. “But he kept asking me to be the expert at it. I’m like, ‘What? What do I know?’ But it allowed me to become more independent. The primary reason to move there was to learn brain imaging. I wanted good access to brain imaging, and I wanted good access to people who could teach me how to conduct experiments with brain imaging.”

Husain enjoyed her time at NIDCD, but she missed being in an academic setting. She knew leaving would mean uprooting her family—she had a young child at the time–but took the plunge.

“Academia is high risk, high reward, because of the potential of losing it all if you don’t get tenure. In academia, you have more control over your research direction. But it comes with the risk that you can lose your job too if you don’t get tenure, and then what will you do? I kept telling my husband that, after five or six years, we might have to move. He said, ‘That’s fine, really.’ I’m like, “If I don’t get tenure, I’m just going into industry. And I still know how to program and code. That was my plan B.”

Fortunately, Husain didn’t need Plan B. She wanted a university with “an MRI on campus and stellar imaging facilities.”

“[Illinois] had good access to a tool [the MRI] I needed to advance my research agenda. And then it was the fit of the department and the college. So that mattered too. I needed to work with audiologists. I needed to work with clinicians and other individuals who were ready to partner with me. I wanted to study disorders, and I wanted to do science that did not wait to see outcomes 30 years later. I wanted to see the immediate impact of my work on people’s lives. I don’t know if I achieved that, but that was the goal.”

Judging by the award, Husain has achieved the goal, which obviously has great meaning to her. The King James McCristal Scholar Award was established in 1988 to honor King McCristal, dean of AHS from 1961-1973.

“Every year since I’ve been here, I have attended the McCristal Lecture. I enjoy them enormously. I have always looked up to the individuals who have given these talks. It seemed to me that this is the one award we have which recognizes, at a college-wide level, someone’s scholarship—that they are a good scholar, regardless of their precise field.

“(They) have–both narrowly and broadly–thought deeply about some questions and have tried to answer them, and in the process, have helped try to improve the world. So in that sense it means a lot; it means a lot to me.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Message from the Department Head, Pamela Hadley

Oct. 22, 2022 | Pamela Hadley

The Department of Speech and Hearing Science concluded an outstanding academic year with the College of Applied Health Sciences Convocation on May 15. We proudly sent many new audiologists and speech-language pathologists into the world, as well as more than 80 bachelor degree recipients who will pursue many different ways of changing the world. It was a wonderful event, all the more so because we were able to celebrate in person for the first time since 2019. You will meet some of our graduates in this newsletter.

We also held our annual recognition of award and scholarship recipients in person in April. More than two-dozen graduate and undergraduate students benefited from the generous support of our donors. They were chosen because of their amazing academic, professional, and personal accomplishments. We were pleased to be joined by friends and families of our recipients, as well as two of the donors who make these awards and scholarships possible, Dr. Ehud Yairi and Mrs. Nanine Breon. It was a very special event, one that made us so proud of our remarkable students.

Our undergraduate students also made us proud with their participation in the 2022 Undergraduate Research Symposium, an event that showcases research excellence across the campus. SHS was represented by 25 students who presented research posters on such topics as factors that improve children’s speech-in-noise recognition, the implications of misophonia for college-age students, and the Lombard effect and speech intelligibility. You can read more about the symposium in this newsletter.

In talking about student achievement, one cannot overlook or overemphasize the importance of outstanding teaching and mentoring. I have always been proud to be a member of the SHS faculty, a committed and caring group of scholars and clinicians who are dedicated to student success. This year, Dr. Raksha Mudar, who serves as our Director of Graduate Studies, received the College of Applied Health Sciences’ Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring Award, an honor of which she is richly deserving. You’ll learn more about Raksha in this issue of SHS E-News. She is highly valued by students and colleagues alike for her wisdom, patience, and calm demeanor.

SHS was proud to play an instrumental role in the planning and execution of World Voice Day in April, a virtual symposium that addressed vocal health through presentations by our own faculty as well as collaborators from the School of Music, Clarke University, the Mayo Clinic, Universita’ di Bologna, Italy, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the Illinois Applied Research Institute. This interesting and informative event drew a wide and diverse audience, who learned about the importance of the interaction between the voice and the acoustic environment.

We also present a roundup of clinic news in this issue of SHS E-News. We have exciting new programs and services for clients and are truly a one-stop shop for the diagnosis and treatment of communication-related problems.

I hope you enjoy receiving this semi-annual roundup of news from the Department of Speech and Hearing Science as much as we enjoy sharing it with you. Please let us know what you are doing so that we can share news of alumni accomplishments in future issues. You can reach us at alumni@ahs.illinois.edu. Be sure to include your year(s) of graduation and degree(s), as well as a brief description of your professional achievements.

Dr. Pamela Hadley
Professor and Department Head

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For SHS’ Chambers, the plan is ‘an unscheduled life’

Oct. 22, 2022 | Anna Flanagan

Somebody asked Ron Chambers what he was going to do in retirement and he said, ‘Have an unscheduled life.”

Dr. Ron Chambers was one of three sons in a farming family in Texas. His mother always knew that he was the scholar in the family, in love with learning and good at it. She always knew that he would be the first in his family to go to college. He says happenstance led him to careers in audiology and academia, a “good gig” that he has enjoyed for more than three decades and from which he recently retired.

As a student at South Plains Junior College and Texas Tech University, he took a broad array of classes in many different fields, interested in everything. Eventually, the powers that be said, “You have to choose a major to continue your studies.”

“I had taken a course in speech and hearing. I liked it and the instructor encouraged me to stay in the field. So I said, ok!” Dr. Chambers recalled.

He went on to complete a master’s degree in audiology, the maximum degree required at the time for professional practice. He went into clinical practice, but knew he wasn’t finished learning yet. Dr. Chambers had every intention of pursuing a PhD, and he began his work toward a doctoral degree in audiology at Purdue University after just two years of professional practice. He had no intention of becoming a professor, however. He had become fascinated with auditory electrophysiology, which was just gaining strength as a diagnostic technique in clinical audiology. After completing his PhD, he accepted a post-doctoral position at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, joining the Cognitive Psychophysiology Lab of Dr. Emanuel Donchin, a pioneer in the field of cognitive neuroscience.

Dr. Chambers spent a year In Dr. Donchin’s lab, investigating electrophysiological measures of evoked responses in advancing age. When a faculty position opened up in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science, his mentors strongly encouraged him to apply and he said “ok” once again. Thus began Dr. Chambers’ 38-year career in SHS.

Teaching, research, service—all part of the job

Dr. Chambers pursued his interest in measuring electrophysiological brain potentials evoked by auditory stimuli throughout his nearly 40-year career. He has studied the physiologic basis of perceived pitch, the effects of aging on auditory cortical evoked potentials, and the appearance of evoked potentials from both peripheral (brainstem) and central (cortical) auditory structures in individuals with cochlear implants. He participated in some of the earliest work in this area, when cochlear implants consisted of a single electrode that stimulated just one area of the auditory nerve. He also has examined the effectiveness of steady-state auditory evoked potentials in predicting the degree and frequency of hearing loss, and the characteristics of evoked potentials elicited by a relatively new type of acoustic stimulus referred to as the chirp.

“My goal has always been better understanding of the physiologic processing of sound in individuals with normal hearing and those with hearing impairments,” he said. “These evoked brain potentials are common clinical measures now. They enable us to detect hearing difficulties in infants and have an intervention plan in place by the time they’re six months old.”

His research has involved many PhD, AuD, and master’s students and for the last 15 years, his teaching has focused on graduate students. Prior to that, Dr. Chambers also taught a variety of undergraduate classes, and he has always included undergraduates as members of his lab. Working with students will be one of the things he most misses about being a professor.

“I love interacting with students and talking with them about how we hear, the details of auditory processes, how hearing loss affects the quality of life for patients and their conversation partners, and the singular role of audiologists in serving people with hearing loss,” he said. He enjoys seeing all students learn and blossom, he says, and encourages former students to stay in touch.

Dr. Chambers contributed significantly to graduate education in SHS when the required degree for entry into audiology practice was elevated from a master’s to a professional doctorate. Dr. Chambers took charge of creating the Doctor of Audiology degree program in SHS, developing and adding to the existing curriculum courses on the electrophysiological indices of audition, advanced audiologic assessment, hearing conservation, medical audiology, and auditory processing disorders.

“We added a lot more clinical experience, and were able to add courses that went into more depth and addressed more advanced issues than we were able to in the master’s program,” he said. “When students graduate from the AuD program, they’re supposed to be ready to hang up their shingles, and they are.”

He also contributed extensively to the department as an administrator, serving as associate head, acting head, interim head, and head for 11 years. With the support of the College of Applied Health Sciences, which SHS had joined in 1991 from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dr. Chambers oversaw the growth of the tenure-track faculty as department head. It was during his leadership that the graduate program in audiology transitioned from a terminal master’s to a doctoral degree. He also is proud of spearheading an effort that added courses in American Sign Language to the undergraduate curriculum.

He believes service—to the department, the campus, and the profession—is essential to an academic career, as long as it is kept in balance with teaching and research responsibilities.

“Through these experiences, I learned more about the college, the university, and the professions of audiology and speech-language pathology as vehicles for public health,” he said, “and in the process, broadened my vision and gained greatly in self-confidence.”

Act III

“Somebody asked me what I was going to do in retirement and I said, ‘Have an unscheduled life,’” Dr. Chambers said. “I won’t have to look at a calendar every day. I’ll go with the flow again.”

He said he once read that life has three acts. Act I goes up to age 30, Act II goes through age 60. In both those acts, law of averages willing, you know that when the curtain comes down, it’s going to come back up.

“But when you get to Act III, it’s the final curtain and you never know when it’s going to happen,” he said.  “It’s time to look at other things in the world, a chance to do more reading. Maybe I’ll write a novel.”

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Serving the profession through mentorship

April 03, 2023 | Anna Flanagan

The Clinical Fellowship Year pairs a first-year practitioner with an experienced practitioner to ease the transition between student and independent provider of clinical services.

Theodora Papastratakos, left

When students take on their first professional position after completing their master’s degrees in speech and hearing science with a focus on speech-language pathology, they must also begin what is called a Clinical Fellowship Year, or CFY, required by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) to earn the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP). The CFY pairs a first-year practitioner with an experienced practitioner in a mentoring relationship designed to ease the transition between student and independent provider of clinical services.

Theodora Papastratakos completed her master’s degree in 2015 and her CFY during the 2015-2016 school year, her first with Aldrin Elementary School in Schaumburg.

“You dive right in, which is why you have a clinical fellowship supervisor,” she said. “It’s so different from being in graduate school and doing your clinical externships versus managing your own caseload. It’s a big leap.”

She found her own CFY experience positive, but also knew there were things she would have liked to change. During her first several years of practice at Aldrin Elementary, Theo felt she was still learning so much that she could not supervise a clinical fellowship. In the fall of 2021, the department head reached out to her to see if she’d be willing to supervise a new SLP who would be joining the school part time.

“I’d been practicing for seven years, and I think I realized that I do know a lot,” she said. “I was excited to share some of that knowledge with somebody coming into the field.”

She took the training course offered by ASHA and welcomed May 2021 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign SHS graduate Rachel Deichstetter to Aldrin Elementary as her first mentee. Some of Theo’s role involved just being available to Rachel to answer questions, walk her through district policies and procedures, and give feedback on her ideas.

“I would review her goals and the reports that she was writing and help her as needed,” Theo said. “I watched some of her therapy sessions and gave her feedback throughout the year. If she was experiencing something for the first time, I might help a little bit more. Toward the end of the year, she was practicing independently.”

Theo enjoyed assisting with Rachel’s transition from student to professional and working with someone fresh out of graduate school. “It was fun to see her gain more confidence throughout the year,” she said. “Sometimes when you’ve been practicing for a while, you get stuck in what you’re doing. Rachel brought fresh ideas and new ways of doing things.”

Theo will continue working at Aldrin Elementary while Rachel joins another school in the Schaumburg district for 2022-2023. “I’ll remain a resource for her in the future if she has questions or needs to bounce ideas off someone,” she said. She looks forward to her next opportunity to supervise a clinical fellow and mentor another budding speech-language pathologist into the profession.

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Mudar honored by ASHA Fellowship

Oct. 22, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

The significance of an ASHA Fellowship is not lost on Raksha Mudar. 

In the summer of 2022, Speech and Hearing Science Associate Professor Raksha Mudar was elected a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). Fellowship is one of the highest forms of recognition given by ASHA and is a public declaration of an individual’s outstanding contributions to the discipline of communication sciences and disorders.

The significance of that recognition was not lost on Dr. Mudar.

“I am delighted to receive this honor from the association. To get recognized by the association for these efforts is really personally and professionally fulfilling,” said Mudar, who joined the University of Illinois in 2011. “My journey as a faculty in communication sciences and disorders has been so much fun. I enjoy what I get to do each day, from training the next generation of clinicians and scientists to conducting research examining intriguing questions about the aging brain and neuroplasticity.”

For Dr. Mudar, the ASHA appointment serves as validation for her research agenda, which was inspired by a personal experience.

“When I was an undergraduate student in speech and hearing science (at the University of Mysore in India), a family friend got diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s dementia,” she said. “This person was an eloquent storyteller. To watch his cognitive communication abilities deteriorate quickly was difficult to watch. His family struggled to understand his needs and wishes and got little help from his doctors on how to deal with these challenges. I was surprised to find that speech-language pathologists rarely worked with individuals with Alzheimer’s dementia at that time and this inspired me to pursue research on cognitive-communication issues in aging and neurodegenerative disorders.”

According to Dr. Mudar, an ASHA Fellow is expected to support and promote scientific and clinical leadership, interdisciplinary services, and an inclusive culture committed to supporting the needs of those with communication and swallowing disorders.
 
ASHA is the national professional association that sets the standard for professional practice in speech-language pathology  and audiology and serves as an accrediting body. To Dr. Mudar—who was also the AHS recipient of the Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring award—it represents something more than that.

“(ASHA) offers a great community for members to connect with each other, learn, and build scientific and clinical excellence,” she said. “Furthermore, ASHA’s advocacy in promoting the needs of individuals and families with communication disorders is critical to supporting communication as a basic human right.”

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AHS Get to Know: Laura Mattie, Ph.D.

April 03, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

Laura Mattie joined the College of Applied Health Sciences in 2015. She leads the Development in Neurogenetic Disabilities Lab, or “DND” Lab. 

Photo by caption

How would you describe your primary research interests? 

My primary research interest is learning how young children with neurodevelopmental disabilities develop early social and communication skills to inform parent-implemented early language interventions.

Why did you decide to apply to work at Illinois?

I applied to Illinois because it was one of the only job postings that targeted expertise in children with disabilities and family well-being, which signified that my work was already valued.

What are you working on right now? 

I have 4 main projects right now: 

  • The Power of the Point Project focuses on the predictors of early language development in toddlers with Down syndrome and fragile X syndrome.
  • ASD Screening Tools in Down Syndrome is a large-scale survey of caregivers of individuals 6-18 years old that aims to determine how to best use autism screening tools for this population.
  • The Speech Accessibility Project aims to make voice recognition technology useful for individuals who may have diverse speech patterns and disabilities, including people with Down syndrome.
  • A Foundational Study of Adaptive Behaviors in Individuals with Down Syndrome is a survey of caregivers to learn about the practical, conceptual, and social skills used in everyday life by their children with Down syndrome who are between birth to 22 years old.

What’s a fun fact you’d like to share about yourself? 

I am a twin mom to 15-month-old girls, so much of my free time is chasing after them! When I do have some down time, I enjoy rewatching TV shows like “The Office” and “Parks & Recreation,” reading, and snuggling with our dogs.

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
 

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Service to the profession marks John J. O’Neill’s legacy in Speech and Hearing Science

Aug. 22, 2023 | Bruce Adams

John O’Neill is credited with playing “a major role in the transformation of Speech and Hearing Science” at Illinois
(Illinois archives)

The Department of Speech and Hearing Science’s history of cultivating a spirit of leadership through mentoring and service to the profession owes much to John J. O’Neill.

O’Neill interviewed to chair the Division of Speech and Hearing Science in the Department of Speech at the 1958 American Speech and Hearing Association convention in New York. Already known for his expertise in clinical psychology and rehabilitative audiology, O’Neill left Ohio State University for Illinois in 1959, where, as the new division chair, he instilled the expectation that faculty and students would match his dedication to service. Upon his hiring, O’Neill was charged with further integrating the speech and audiology areas, developing the graduate program, obtaining grants and centralizing the department under one roof. He tackled all this as he widened the department’s contributions to speech and hearing programs across Illinois and beyond. Department faculty, graduate students and undergraduates contributed to training, clinical work and the efforts of professional associations at the local, state and national levels.

In his obituary, published by the News-Gazette on July 5, 2009, O’Neill was described as having “played a major role in the transformation of Speech and Hearing Science at the University of Illinois to its current status as the nationally ranked Department of Speech and Hearing Science and served as the first head of the department from 1973 to 1979.” O’Neill published more than 80 journal articles and technical reports and was the author or co-author of four textbooks. Although he retired in 1991, O’Neill remained active in SHS, serving for years as the department’s format checker for theses and dissertations.

In a 2010 tribute at the Annual John J. O’Neill Lecture, Tanya Gallagher, a former dean of the College of Applied Health Sciences and an alumna of SHS, called O’Neill a “highly respected researcher whose landmark work advanced the field of aural rehabilitation, a skilled administrator who built one of the leading speech and hearing science programs in the nation and helped our national association take its place as one of the major scientific and professional organizations.”

Gallagher—who received her master’s degree and Ph.D. from SHS, said, “Dr. O’Neill had attracted some of the brightest thinkers of our field to this program, and the intellectual vitality within the small white house that housed the program then [the old Lorado Taft house] was palpable and energizing. It was the place to be, where it was happening, and we knew it even then.” 

Another SHS alumna, Judith LeDuc, had a similar feeling about O’Neill. 

“I first met John O’Neill when I came to interview him about the Speech Science Program at Illinois. I walked into his office, and there he was, with his feet resting on his desk. I thought, ‘My kind of guy!’”

LeDuc, who got her master’s degree in 1971, went on to work as a speech-language pathologist at the University of Illinois Medical Center and developed both outpatient and inpatient hospital-based pediatric programs, as well as a private practice. 

“I was interested in child language, and he assured me that the faculty at Illinois brought a wealth of knowledge and research to the program,” said LeDuc, who has also been an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, Rush Medical Center  and DePaul University. “He was passionate about the field, dedicated to serving, and somehow was always able to hold the department together, as faculty and students paraded through.”

John Deck, who got his master’s and Ph.D. from Illinois, credited O’Neill for his guidance and direction and said O’Neill encouraged him to take a job as a speech pathologist at the Danville VA Medical Center in Illinois. Through the years at Danville, more than 500 graduate and doctoral students from the division (and later, department) of SHS gained clinical experience. O’Neill was Deck’s Ph.D. advisor, and, as Deck said, “We would discuss important legislation affecting funding for the profession. Conversations Dr. O’Neill and I had about legislation struck close to home … During our discussions, I discovered that no one among the Big Ten schools in speech and hearing did more to help create traineeships for graduate students than John J. O’Neill. So many of us have benefited from his efforts and his legacy.”

O’Neill and Deck, who later worked at Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis, worked to secure traineeships with stipends for speech-language-pathology and audiology students. 

O’Neill was also a pioneer in forming the Illinois Speech and Hearing Association in February 1960, and he was a co-founder in 1966 and past president of the Academy of Rehabilitative Audiology, which helped establish the department’s national reputation in that area. In 1969, he served as president of ASHA. He was a charter member of the Council on Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders, a member of numerous ASHA committees and boards, and ultimately a recipient of ASHA’s Honors of the Association in 1979.

O’Neill’s activity with these associations transferred to his students and colleagues as well. LeDuc, for example, said O’Neill “encouraged us to attend Illinois Speech and Hearing Association meetings, as well as ASHA annual meetings. It was soon after graduate school that I began to serve on ASHA’s legislative council, and ISHA’s program and local arrangements committees. My work on ASHA’s boards and councils continued for more than 40 years. For most of my career, I served the underserved. It was that O’Neill voice in my head.”

The SHS faculty today continue in that spirit. Faculty serve on committees within ASHA, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation and the Acoustical Society of America. They are officers in the Eastern Illinois Speech-Language Hearing Association and the Illini Chapter of the Illinois Association of the Deaf, and they serve on Advisory Boards of the Illinois State Board of Education, the American Tinnitus Association and the National Down Syndrome Society, among others. 

“As we celebrate the department’s history and the contributions of its pioneering faculty, we also affirm our commitment to giving back to the community, serving the professions, and honoring the legacy of those who came before us,” said Department Head Pamela Hadley.

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