Vince Lara-Cinisomo | Page 2 | Department of Speech and Hearing Science | College of Applied Health Sciences

Words That Bind

April 23, 2025 | Ethan Simmons

A new weekly aphasia communication group is helping Illinois speech-language pathologists understand the condition

*The weekly aphasia communication group is the ‘best hour’ of everyone’s week, one member said.* (Photo by Ethan Simmons)

In the days following her stroke, all Mary Moore could remember was two phrases: her name, and Dec. 26, the day she was born.

A short five months later, Moore was in the Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Clinic, leading a lively conversation with students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She’s now a regular attendee of the Aphasia Weekly Communication Group, a brand new initiative in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at Illinois.

“It’s very accommodating to people, and it’s just so, so much fun,” Moore said. “It helps your ability to socialize and get out there when you go back home afterwards.”

Now that Moore is living with aphasia, a language disorder that limits the comprehension and production of speech, she knows her conversational skills may never return to her pre-stroke fluency. But the camaraderie she experiences each week with the group provides a regular boost to her confidence.

The aphasia communication group brings master’s degree students studying to become speech-language pathologists together with adults with aphasia for hour-long chats.

The table topics at the clinic range from basic icebreakers (“Who’s your favorite celebrity? What’s a fun fact no one knows about you?”) to short word games and trivia contests. Each session challenges the participants on their recall of people, places and things, while the students gather valuable insights about how aphasia is experienced in the real world.

All the students are enrolled in a class, SHS 534 Aphasia and Related Disorders, taught by Teaching Assistant Professor Anna Pucilowksi. Department faculty have been hoping to add a real-life dimension to the class for years, and now, they finally have it.

Abby Franz, a longtime SLP and instructor at the Illinois clinic, has facilitated the weekly aphasia group since it kicked off in January.

“Our goal was to make sure the students understood this was an opportunity for the individuals who have aphasia to enhance their communication in a more informal social conversation because individuals who have aphasia often become isolated. They don’t get the same social experience just because of their language impairment,” Franz said.

“This is an opportunity for them to come together, socialize and interact with other individuals who have aphasia, which they really appreciate—I’m finding that to be very important to this group.”

A New Opportunity

According to the National Aphasia Association, at least 2 million people in the U.S. live with aphasia. The most common cause is from strokes: nearly one-third of the strokes that occur each year in this country, or roughly 225,000, result in aphasia.

For such a prevalent language disorder, SHS faculty felt their students needed more exposure to understand aphasia more fully.

“It was really obvious that our master’s students were not having real-life experience talking to people with aphasia,” Pucilowski said. “For previous cohorts of students, the course material just seemed really theoretical. I can show them videos, but they’re not actually learning what it’s like.”

Though this aphasia communication group is completely new for the Department of SHS at Illinois, similar conversation groups are common at hospitals and recovery centers across the country, Franz said. An aphasia communication group existed at Carle Hospital in Urbana, but it petered out prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At SHS, the need for more in-person interaction began bubbling further when the department yielded a larger-than-usual cohort of students. Then, the Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Clinic became certified to accept Medicare clients last spring, bringing in more older adults to the clinic.

Pucilowski and Franz put together a proposal for the aphasia group in fall 2024, and the plan was quickly accepted. All that was left was to find participants.

To get the word out, they relied on word-of-mouth and some boots-on-the-ground flyer marketing, mainly in nearby health care facilities. In the first semester, around five regular participants have continued to show and chat with Franz and the students.

Aphasia manifests in a broad spectrum. On the severest end, clients with aphasia may struggle to communicate a single word or sound, or their comprehension could be significantly impaired. On the milder side, individuals with aphasia may speak quite fluently, Franz said, even if they misuse or mispronounce certain words, or halt as they try to recall the correct phrase.

This is an opportunity for them to come together, socialize and interact with other individuals who have aphasia, which they really appreciate—I’m finding that to be very important to this group.

Abby Franz

SLP and instructor at the Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Clinic

In the current aphasia communication group, participants are all on the milder end of the spectrum. More importantly, they’ve gotten along swimmingly.

“The group’s really pretty fluent. The dynamic’s great,” Franz said. “They all are very unique and have a lot in common and are very interesting individuals. And that was just purely by luck.”

The ‘Best Hour’ of the Week

At their Wednesday session before spring break, students and participants in the aphasia communication group were asked to describe their experience with the group in one word.

Student Michaela Herwig chose the word “blessing.”

“It’s been really cool learning about them as people,” said Herwig, who’s training to become a clinical SLP. “Because before they had their strokes and before they had aphasia, they’ve lived very cool lives and they still do really cool things now, even though they might have to adapt them in different ways.”

As the weeks went on, new fascinating biography details kept leaking out from the participants. Many of the participants happen to be world travelers, for example, having spent years living overseas or learning different languages.

Within Herwig’s class of future speech-language pathologists, word about the aphasia group is starting to spread.

“We all describe this group as the best hour of our week,” she said. “Being in this group has solidified that this is a population I really want to work with when I graduate.”

For the students, each hour in the group is an opportunity to improve their clinical writing skills when working with individuals with aphasia and practice the right communication approach with these clients. In the first phase of the aphasia class, students complete a supported communication training where they learn strategies of how best to interact with patients with aphasia.

When a speaker with aphasia is working to get their point across, subtle nods and nonverbal cues in response go a long way. Sometimes, the students will rephrase a question to make sure everyone’s on the same page or ask the participant to write down the sentence they’re caught on.

“People who have a language disorder, they have full lives and they’re doing their best to recover and get through life,” said Tony Jacobs, a first-year SLP student who was placed in the group. “To see people with aphasia holistically and not just learning about it in class is one of the best parts of this group.”

In the second part of the aphasia class, students design their own eight-week aphasia intervention program—anything from a book club, to a volunteer group, exercise club or another socially driven way to engage participants. The aphasia communication group provides a hands-on learning experience of what these programs can look like.

“The way aphasia is getting treated nowadays, it’s with what’s called the ‘life participation’ approach to aphasia,” Pucilowksi said. “You don’t just come to a clinic and do some exercises and expect your language to change. You have to situate it in context, and language happens in groups and communities.”

The Road Ahead

What does recovery look like for a person with aphasia? With the most common cause being a stroke, the severity of the stroke and age of the patient are the main variables. Most patients can expect their fastest language recoveries in the first 3 to 6 months. A year out, progress typically levels off.

The class, instructors and participants want to keep this aphasia communication group going. (Photo by Ethan Simmons)

Communication groups target the isolation that comes with aphasia, improving the participants’ social health as much as their physical health.

“If we can improve their life, even if it’s just one of them, if they’re feeling more comfortable socially and we’re enhancing their life, then the goal is met, right?” Franz said.

With the first semester wrapping up smoothly, the class, instructors and participants want to keep this aphasia communication group going. There are undoubtedly more people in the Champaign-Urbana area with aphasia, and more students in the department eager to learn from the experience.

“If we can start offering these eight-week programs and groups, and more niche specialty groups, I think that would be great for the students and great fun for the participants,” Pucilowski said. “That would be my dream.”

From the time she walks into the sessions on Wednesday mornings, Mary Moore can hardly wipe the grin off her face. It’s hard to believe now, but months ago she was on the fence about joining the aphasia group at all. After understanding her diagnosis, she became determined to “do her homework.”

“I just had to get better. I had to get better,” Moore said. “I just decided I wanted to go, no matter whether it was in winter or whatever, that I wanted to go. So I did.”

Moore feels a weight lifted when she’s back in the room with Franz and the students. Gone are any airs of judgment when she stammers searching for the correct word, only patience and understanding.

Her advice to any adults with aphasia thinking about joining: “Go for it.”

“The students are wonderful, and they are very kind. They don’t talk about you, they listen to you and they care about you,” Moore said. “It’s just so good, it’s beyond belief.”

(Interested in joining the aphasia communication group, or want to learn more about the Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Clinic? Contact shsclinic@illinois.edu or call 217-333-2205.)

Tags: Abby Franz, Anna Pucilowski, Aphasia, Moving Forward 2025, SHS Newsletter Spring 2025

Decoding the mysteries of misophonia

Oct. 21, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

By ETHAN SIMMONS

Food-slurping, knuckle-cracking, pen-tapping, nose-sniffling. All these noises can trigger strong emotional responses for people living with misophonia, or sensitivity to specific, often human-generated sounds.

Misophonia is a newly recognized hearing condition—the term was first coined in 2001—and its exact mechanics, and boundaries, remain mysterious.

To investigate the potential causes of misophonia, two University of Illinois researchers, Speech and Hearing Science Professor Fatima Husain from the College of Applied Health Sciences and Psychology Professor Howard Berenbaum from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, are pairing up to study misophonic triggers across three different cultures.

“Are the ‘trigger sounds’ the same in the three countries?” Husain asked. “What is the psychological impact on the individual and their family across the different countries?”

With a near-$500,000 award from the Misophonia Research Fund, the researchers are actively recruiting to conduct psychological and audiological assessments for 100 people diagnosed with misophonia in Seoul, South Korea; another 100 in Sâo Paulo, Brazil; and 100 more within a 150-mile radius of Champaign, Illinois.

After the assessments, participants are exposed to a variety of pre-recorded sounds, and their reactions are recorded.

“We do say this may be triggering, but it’s a safe space. They are in a sound booth. There is no one else there actually eating or anything around them, and they can always stop at any time,” Husain said.

The researchers’ specialties are a direct match for the subject matter. Husain’s research concerns how the brain processes sound; Berenbaum studies adult psychopathology, with a focus on emotional processes and disturbances.

With psychologists and audiologists in three different countries using the same instruments and criteria, the team is excited to gather strong, comparable data, Berenbaum said. Their research may help narrow the “gray area” that exists around the condition.

“There’s no clear definition about where to draw the boundaries, where something changes from misophonia to not misophonia,” Berenbaum said. “Is misophonia something you have or you don’t, or are there degrees to it?”

A growing collaboration

Berenbaum and Husain have teamed up on misophonia research before. They surveyed and assessed for misophonia occurrence in spring of 2021 among a collegiate population, polling more than 12,000 University of Illinois undergraduate and graduate students for symptoms of various auditory disorders.

Their study, which ended in October 2023, found 20 percent of roughly 1,100 respondents showed strong evidence of misophonia-like traits, and many had comorbidities with other mental health conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Nearly 100 of the survey respondents also completed in-person audiological, psychological and MRI assessments. Manuscripts on these aspects of the study are being prepared.

Ever since she earned her doctorate in Cognitive and Neural Systems from Boston University in 1999, Husain has studied sounds for a living. Since 2008, her research has delved into hearing disorders such as tinnitus, a “ringing” in the ear often associated with hearing loss.

Her path to studying misophonia started with a separate sound-sensitivity condition: hyperacusis, or a reduced tolerance to everyday sounds. In her recent research with Berenbaum, they found a high degree of overlap for those experiencing both tinnitus and hyperacusis with misophonia.

Misophonia seems similar on the surface, but it’s a distinct condition. The term describes an intense reaction to specific, usually human-generated sounds, which may pair with resentment toward the source of the noise, Husain said.

In this international study, they’re planning to analyze whether the comorbid conditions are the same or different across the three countries.

“It’s common in the United States, at least for those with misophonia to have a history of anxiety and depression. In these different cultures, it’s less studied, and not in a systematic way,” Berenbaum said.

Husain learned more about the condition from a diverse set of researchers at a workshop funded by the REAM Foundation, which sponsors the grant-making Misophonia Research Fund. In the company of neuroscientists and psychologists, Husain realized there was another angle to analyze this condition.

“One of the things with misophonia is the fact that it’s been primarily studied and also treated by psychiatrists and psychologists. It has rarely been within the audiology hearing perspective, and I was like, ‘Wait, this is a sound.’ The people who are saying they’re worrying about misophonia are saying ‘I don’t like these sounds,’” Husain said.

The psychological impact of misophonia is significant, Husain said, and important to treat—sometimes the sounds only trigger discomfort when they come from certain people, even loved ones like a child or a parent, she said.

“I was very, very interested in the hearing aspect and what is it about this sound—what will happen if someone else, say a stranger, produces the sound?” Husain said.

For the current international study, researchers have successfully recruited around half of their Illinois sample, though they’re looking for participants within a 3-hour radius of Champaign to fill out their target of 100. The Seoul team has recruited around 20 people; while the Sâo Paulo operation is just getting started, Berenbaum said.

In addition, the team is recruiting for a second study in the same realm, to examine whether misophonia changes across the lifespan.

“What we’ll gain will benefit international research on misophonia and allow for greater and faster progress in understanding and treating it,” Berenbaum said.

(Are you interested in participating in this research, or do you know someone who might? Visit this site for more information.)

Editor’s note:

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

Tags: Fatima Husain, SHS Fall Newsletter 2024

Student Spotlight: Kaley Graves, from patient to practitioner

Aug. 22, 2023 | Ethan Simmons

Audiology wasn’t initially Graves’ field of choice—she graduated from University of Illinois Springfield in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology

Third-year audiology doctoral student Kaley Graves is missing the first week of classes this fall, but she has a great excuse.

Thanks to her sterling accomplishments as a budding audiologist, she’s on an all-expenses-paid trip to visit one of the premier hearing aid manufacturers in the world: Oticon’s headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“I had to reread that email six times to make sure it said ‘Denmark’ and not ‘Denver, Colorado,’ or something,” Graves said. It’ll be her first time out of the United States.

Earlier this year, Graves was selected as one of six recipients of the American Academy of Audiology Foundation’s Empowering Student Scholarship, sponsored by Oticon and awarded to students who show “exceptional promise” as future clinical audiologists.

“I have hearing aids in both ears, so I’ve been the patient my entire life,” Graves said. “Now I’m on the other side of the booth and can be the clinician, which I think is so fun.”

Graves grew up in Monticello, Ill., a half-hour drive from the University of Illinois campus. Audiology wasn’t initially her field of choice—she graduated from University of Illinois Springfield in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

That career path didn’t fit, but Graves found her way into intriguing research projects that focused on hearing and visual cues. One of her undergraduate mentors encouraged her to apply for a behavioral neuroscience position at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, also in Springfield, where she studied the development of tinnitus in lab rats.

Graves went on to perform hearing research for a decade, but she craved more human connection on the job. A suggestion from her own doctor set Graves on her current course.

“I was admittedly kind of a pain in the butt to my current audiologist about all the things that she was constantly doing to my hearing aids and all of the things that she would do on a daily basis with her patients,” Graves said.

“And she eventually was like: ‘You should probably just get into this field. You’ve already got the hearing background, go deal with people—it’s more fun.” Graves’ mother was especially encouraging of her daughter’s new career path. When her parents first discovered their child had hearing loss, “it was terrifying,” Graves said.

“[My mom] said for patients, especially families that have young kids who are finding out their child has a hearing loss, it’s going to be huge for them to see their doctor has a hearing loss and can be successful in life.”

Today, Graves keeps busy as president of the Student Academy of Audiology chapter at Illinois. The registered student organization doubles as a networking site for SHS students and an outreach arm for the department.

A few events they’ve taken on: Hearing safety stand-ups at the Urbana’s Market at the Square, free hearing screenings in the SHS building, and recently, cerumen (earwax) removals for the ClarkLindsey Village retirement community.

Especially for older adults, earwax buildups can be a primary cause of muffled hearing, Graves said. Graves and another member of her graduate cohort cleared residents’ ears while a handful of first-year students in the audiology program cleaned their hearing aids.

“Being able to do a minimal amount of work over two hours to improve their quality of life was huge,” Graves said. “So many people left that room super happy.”

Her audiology work extends to Illinois’ student population as well. Graves has booked a hearing safety presentation in the fall for the student bandmates of the Marching Illini.

“The first thing that I’m really going to try and drive home to them is to please wear ear plugs when you’re out and constantly practicing,” Graves said. “We were taught first year what the acceptable levels of noise exposure are over X amount of time. If they’re out practicing for four hours and it’s about 90 decibels, they need to do something to mitigate the effects of those loud noises.”

For now, though, Graves is preparing her Denmark itinerary: visiting Tivoli Gardens, one of the world’s oldest amusement parks, and seeing the Danish Crown Jewels. “I’m super excited to go be a tourist,” she said.

Of course, she’s ready for her Oticon visit. “They do a lot of innovation, they do a lot of workshops, they do a lot of Ph.D. student type-things,” Graves said. “I am just really, really fascinated by what I’m going to see behind the scenes at their research center.”

Editor’s note:

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

Tags: alumni, Kaley Graves

Study: Hearing aids may slow cognitive decline for at-risk adults

July 21, 2023 | Ethan Simmons

The study analyzed cognitive performance for groups of older adults (ages 70 to 84) with untreated hearing loss

A new study published in the medical journal The Lancet found that hearing aids might slow cognitive decline for at-risk older adults with hearing loss.

Sadie Braun, audiologist and clinical assistant professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois, said she’ll incorporate these findings into her counseling with patients.

“For people who have any sort of high risk for cognitive decline such as dementia (or) Alzheimer’s, this study tells us that those individuals should get hearing aids as soon as they need them,” Braun said. “The average person waits 5 to 7 years or more to get hearing aids once they know they have a hearing loss.”

The study, co-led by Dr. Frank Lin of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health, analyzed cognitive performance for groups of older adults (ages 70 to 84) with untreated hearing loss.

Participants were randomly assigned to either the control group that received counseling on disease prevention, or to the intervention group, which received regular audiology treatment and hearing aids.

Researchers followed up with participants every six months for three years. For participants at lower risk of cognitive decline, hearing aid interventions showed no significant effect on cognitive function. But for participants with high risk for dementia, cognitive decline slowed by 48 percent over the three-year period.

“That’s a pretty amazing statistic to me,” Braun said. “We’ve known there was a correlation between hearing loss and cognitive decline, but there were a lot of unknowns regarding the exact nature of that correlation as well as whether hearing aids or other treatments could have a positive impact.”

The connection between hearing loss and dementia is well-documented, but the “why” is still up for research inquiry, Braun said. Regardless, the finding adds to the growing list of reasons for adults to check their hearing sooner rather than later.

Long-term speech understanding can improve the earlier a patient uses hearing aids, Braun said.

“Cognitive health is something that people really care about,” Braun said. “I think this is going to cause more people to be more concerned about a mild or moderate hearing loss.”

For at-risk adults and anyone interested in checking their hearing, Braun recommends a visit to an audiologist.

The Audiology and Speech Language Pathology Clinic at 2001 S. Oak Street in Champaign is open to all patients, regardless of affiliation to the University of Illinois and accepts some insurance plans. It is operated by the College of Applied Health Sciences’ Department of Speech and Hearing Science.

New patients are required to schedule an appointment by calling 217-333-2205 or emailing shsclinic@illinois.edu.

Editor’s note:

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

Tags: Sadie Braun

Students bring volunteer force to ‘Medfest’

May 22, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

MedFest was set up to provide free medical screenings for Special Olympics athletes.

*A small team of student audiologists-in-training conducted hearing examinations for nearly 100 athletes (Photo provided)*

The stage was set at Wintrust Sports Complex in the Village of Bedford Park—a suburb of Chicago—when nearly 600 Special Olympics athletes from across the state began to stream in.

With the help of a substantial volunteer staff, including more than 25 students from the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, many of the athletes left the facility ready to play.

As part of the 22nd annual “MedFest” event, hundreds descended on Bedford Park to help athletes from Special Olympics Illinois receive their physical certifications to compete in the state.

In the most recent edition, hosted on Nov. 30, students from the Departments of Speech and Hearing Science and Recreation, Sport and Tourism took time out of their fall break from classes to help the event run smoothly.

A small team of student audiologists-in-training conducted hearing examinations for nearly 100 athletes, while 15 RST students helped from the event management side, signing in the athletes and directing them to the right locations.

“You can tell that they got so comfortable and were having a blast, talking with athletes and interacting with them,” said Melissa Garritano, senior director of Special Olympics Illinois region D, which covers the Chicagoland area. “Thinking back to when I was at the U. of I., I wish I would’ve done stuff like this. They drove up two hours to spend the day with us—the athletes loved them.”

The connection stemmed from Bedford Park’s budding partnership with the College of AHS. The Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism has a grant with the Village of Bedford Park, which heavily invested in the Wintrust Sports Complex. The project-heavy facility hosts community events on a regular basis, atop of its normal sports operations.

Joe Ronovsky, chief business officer of Village of Bedford Park, is a two-time RST graduate. He saw that the complex could serve as a real-world “lab setting” for community engagement projects led by RST faculty and students.

“Frankly, it’s kind of a one-stop shop, and it’s an opportunity for me as a teacher to show how all these things interact with each other,” said RST Clinical Associate Professor Michael Raycraft.

MedFest was set up to provide free medical screenings for Special Olympics athletes. Wintrust Sports Complex at Bedford Park began partnering with Special Olympics Illinois about a year and a half ago.

“Their facility is unbelievable,” Garritano said. She met Raycraft through their common connections to the Wintrust Complex.

Nicole Dudek, a junior in the RST program, was taken aback by the organizational strength and scale of the event. She started her day at MedFest positioned at the height and weight station, an entry point for many of the athletes.

When students showed up around 8:30 a.m., the Special Olympics staff had the gear and answers: nametags, T-shirts, and where each student would be working within the complex.

“From the event management side of things, you could tell how well-run this event was start to finish,” Dudek said. “It helped to have such a large open space and so many volunteers, and everyone worked well together with the sole goal to help these students get their necessary medical certifications.”

The “noisy, upbeat” energy of the event bolstered the volunteer experience for RST senior Carson Bounds.

“As you could imagine, with 450 kids taking a field trip to a large indoor sport facility during a school day, they all were quite excited to be there,” Bounds said.

Third-year audiology student Yadira Espinoza appreciated the pre-event workshop on how to work with a special needs population.

“Since it was a Special Olympics event, it was important for us to know what to expect; that every kid will be different depending on their needs and accommodations,” she said.

The athletes—ranging from elementary schoolers to full-grown adults—had a variety of responses to the hearing tests. Espinoza used her bilingual fluency to help some of the families who only spoke Spanish, she said.

“These opportunities are very important because they provide more or confirm what we learn in the classroom. It’s different to work with someone who may have Down syndrome or a speech delay; seeing it firsthand really makes a difference and puts you in a situation to put your critical thinking in place,” she said.

*Students from RST and SHS teamed up at MedFast (Photo provided)*

SHS audiology students are regular volunteers in the community, typically getting out for a handful of outreach events per semester, such as a recent visit to the ClarkLindsey retirement community in Urbana.

Clinical associate professor Sadie Braun supervised the audiology students in the volunteer event. Seeing her students persist with the athletes who didn’t respond right away to testing made the experience worthwhile.

“The athlete got this sense of pride when they were doing what we were asking them to do,” Braun said.

“It was awesome and unique to bring the U of I [audiology] crew up,” Garritano added. “Some of those athletes they got to see may have never had a hearing test in their life.”

Ronovsky thanked Raycraft and Village of Bedford Park President David Brady for tying together all the stakeholders in November’s event.

“Seeing the large group of RST and Speech and Hearing Science students volunteering at MedFest really tied together the meaning of community we’re trying to build at the Wintrust Sports Complex, in Bedford Park and throughout the state of Illinois,” Ronovsky said. “These Illini students are the next leaders in our communities.”

Editor’s note:

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

Tags: Mike Raycraft, RST Newsletter Spring 2024, Students

Student Spotlight: Charlie Nudelman, a trained ear

May 10, 2023 | Ethan Simmons

Nudelman was raised by a speech language pathologist: His mother

*Charles Nudelman, right, with adviser Pasquale Bottalico*

What comes to mind when you hear “professional voice-user?” Perhaps the image of an opera singer or a sports announcer pops in your head.

Ask Department of Speech and Hearing Science doctoral candidate Charles Nudelman, and he’ll conjure dozens of examples: Canvassers, radio DJs, telemarketers, clergy and lawyers are just a few of the professions who’ve come to him with vocal problems.

“The voice is something I feel like we take for granted—we wake up in the morning and expect everything to go fine,” Nudelman said. “If you’re relying on your voice for your job, hoarseness is going to get worse as you use it. And there’s a lot of costs related to that.”

After spending a year diagnosing voice issues in a clinical setting, 2019 SHS graduate Nudelman has returned to his alma mater to obtain his doctorate, focusing his research on preventing vocal disorders for the near-30 percent of adults who face them.

Nudelman, from Gurnee, Ill., was raised by a speech language pathologist: His mother. But he came to the University of Illinois with his major undeclared, initially hoping to veer from the course she traveled.

“I wanted to carve out my own path, but I ended up loving the classes and loving the faculty of (SHS),” Nudelman said. “That’s what drew me here to the U. of I., knowing regardless of the path I took I would have a really good education. And it was true.”

Under his advisor and friend SHS Associate Professor Pasquale Bottalico, Nudelman has become a decorated student researcher within the department, receiving the Phyllis Ariens Burkhead Memorial Fellowship and the Elaine Paden Award this spring.

And for his presentation at 2023’s “Research Live!,” where graduate students describe their own studies to a judge panel of high school juniors, he came away with the grand prize of $500.

From the start of his undergraduate experience, Nudelman was using his communication skills often, joining student radio and broadcasting Illinois athletics events through Big Ten Network’s Student U.

“It brought me to figure out what exactly is the voice, how does it work, what is this instrument we all have? And how can I make it better while I’m on TV? That’s a wormhole to itself, and I’m still living in it.”

Those questions brought him to SHS 301: General Speech Science, taught by then-first-year Assistant Professor Bottalico. Nudelman sat in the front row every lecture, taking copious notes. He quickly attached to Bottalico’s “distinct” teaching style, and gratefully accepted an invite to his lab.

For the better part of six years, the pair have worked “nonstop” on projects together, even when Nudelman left to obtain his master’s degree from the MGH Institute for Health Professions in Boston. Now back at the Illinois, he’s set to obtain his Ph.D. in 2025.

“The stars aligned, he’s an amazing mentor and friend and person,” Nudelman said. “He’s not only looking to open doors for me but any person who works with him.”

What’s “astonished” Bottalico about his mentee is how Nudelman has responded to escalating expectations with every new research project. Just one year into his Ph.D. program, Nudelman’s research output is already comparable to that of an advanced scholar, Bottalico said.

“I have a very high standard, it’s not easy to surprise me.” Bottalico said. “And Charlie has done it constantly since we met.”

Nudelman’s winning study for Research Live! took a close look at the vocal performance of teachers. He used a virtual reality headset to simulate various classroom environments for 30 schoolteachers, closely monitoring the acoustics of their voices.

What it showed: Teachers who spoke to virtual classrooms fuller with simulated students reported more vocal discomfort and fatigue, Nudelman said, while larger virtual classrooms negatively affected the teachers’ voice quality.

“I think it’s something to think about within classrooms when class sizes are only increasing and we want our teachers to be comfortable,” Nudelman said. “I guess I’m a proponent for smaller class sizes based on this study.”

He has his sights set on a career in academia, “hopefully being a mentor like Dr. Bottalico has been to me to as many students as I can,” he said. But the doctoral student finds fulfillment in making research accessible to the general public as well.

For example: Instead of clearing your throat before speaking, sip on some water. Avoid whispering — it’s worse for your voice than just talking. And if you’re speaking to a large group, use a microphone and take pauses to breathe to avoid hoarseness afterward.

It’s this brand of practical science that made Nudelman feel right at home at AHS.

“It doesn’t matter what AHS major you are, you’re working with people to improve their quality of life,” he said. “Even though we’re all doing different things, the goal is the same, and you can feel that whenever you’re interacting with anyone in this college.

“It’s a great place to come if you’re interested in helping people.”

Editor’s note:

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

Tags: alumni, Charles Nudelman, Pasquale Bottalico

Department of Speech and Hearing Science rose from a humble start

March 09, 2023 | Bruce Adams

In 2023, SHS celebrated its 50th anniversary. The articles below highlight the key people and research that shaped SHS into the strong program it is today.

*Dr. Severina Nelson (left) was a pioneer in the field of speech therapy. (photo courtesy University of Illinois Archives)*

As humble beginnings go, it would be difficult to top that of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at the University of Illinois.

In 1938, Dr. Severina E. Nelson repurposed a closet in Lincoln Hall to start an outreach program providing speech therapy. She began by assisting a student with some articulation difficulties. Sharing an office with colleagues and unable to find a private room, Nelson said, “Finally, the janitor volunteered to donate his mop closet so that I could set up a speech therapy lab. He moved to the basement.”

If that were all there was to it, Nelson would go down in campus history as one of the more determined, innovative, and resourceful professors at Illinois and as a founder of what, in 1973, became the Department of Speech and Hearing Science (SHS).

But there is more to Severina Nelson, and SHS, than that.

“Nowadays, our culture is notoriously rough on the dedicated person with a cause, especially a woman,” wrote a group of students to Nelson upon her retirement in 1964. “It is true that all new concepts only get recognition after someone has spent years being persistent and farsighted until finally, the disbelievers are made uncomfortable and become believers. You’ve been a woman with a gleam in your eye, and thank heaven, you never became a casualty of our system.”

Nelson earned her B.S. in 1918 and her M.A. in 1923 in English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She began her professional life as a high school teacher in Iowa, coming back to Urbana-Champaign in 1920 as an associate instructor in the Division of Public Speaking in the Department of English. After earning her M.A. degree, she pursued a career teaching interpretive speech. She was an engaging speaker, giving countless readings for campus groups, on tours across Illinois, and on radio shows. This led to her co-authoring a best-selling speech textbook with Charles H. Woolbert in 1927: The Art of Interpretive Speech (with a fourth edition still in press in the 1960s).

In 1932, Nelson was elected president of Sigma Delta Phi, a national honorary women’s dramatic and speaking fraternity. Fittingly, it was Nelson who introduced aviator Amelia Earhart during her March 21, 1935 appearance on campus—two years before Earhart’s disappearance. Nelson had built a profile as a director of dramatic productions, including those for the Women’s League, the annual Homecoming “Stunt Show,” and the Hillel Players.

Nelson earned her Ph.D. in 1938 in Speech Pathology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and then did post-doctoral work at the New York Medical College. The work Nelson began by helping college students with speech difficulties received funding and was then extended to community members. In 1938, she brought clinical practice at the University of Illinois into existence by establishing its speech clinic, serving as its director from 1939-59 and as a professor of speech from 1941-64. Some of Nelson’s early research in speech disorders focused on stuttering. She published three seminal articles from 1939-45 in the Quarterly Journal of Speech and The Journal of Pediatrics, on the role of heredity in stuttering, and in the Journal of Speech Disorders, on stuttering in twin types.

In 1939, the Daily Illini described Nelson as “one of the most popular instructors in summer school,” noting that “her office is different from the usual. Here you open the door and find yourself looking into a full-length mirror. Vanity isn’t the reason for the mirror’s being there. She finds it very useful in her speech correction work. Just during the past year, the speech department has made great advances in this work, and much of it has been under Miss Nelson’s supervision. Patients are studied and classified according to their type of speech defect, then they are turned over to students in speech correction classes for help.” (Please see Editor’s Note below regarding terminology use in historical records) Most of the student therapists were women whom Nelson supported as the faculty advisor to the campus chapter of Zeta Phi Eta, the national women’s speech sorority.

By 1940, Nelson had secured a $2,000 grant to support her clinic and extensive office and clinical space in Gregory Hall, where individuals with cerebral palsy, hearing disabilities, and cleft palate received therapy. She also had established an educational program in speech therapy at the University of Illinois, with four years of undergraduate coursework and one year of graduate study. From 1943-1944, as the chair of a state legislative committee, Nelson delivered 50 to 75 speeches throughout Illinois to win passage of the committee’s bill to provide supplemental funds for local clinical efforts. With the onset of the World War II, veterans were returning with “organic and psychological disabilities.” The clinic’s funding from the farsighted bills in the Illinois legislature was augmented by federal assistance to veterans. Twenty-seven nationwide colleges and universities received this funding, notably clustered in the Midwest around the University of Illinois, including Indiana University, Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, and several branches of what would become the University of Wisconsin system.

The demand for speech and hearing specialists was such that Nelson wrote to her department head in 1945 that the University of Illinois Speech and Hearing Clinic was competing against Army and Navy hospitals to recruit therapists for work in the Champaign and Urbana school districts. By 1946, there had been 16 master’s theses recorded in Speech and Hearing Science.

In 1950, under Nelson’s leadership and advocacy the clinic moved to the Lorado Taft House on campus (though, as she wrote in a letter, Nelson was convinced the University planned to demolish the building.) The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that “her enthusiasm, plus a brisk business-like air, are reflected in the rest of her efficient and enthusiastic staff.” A newsletter describing “Dr. Severina Nelson’s informative, vivid, and impressive account of the Illinois Speech Clinic” to the Urbana Rotary Club in January 1955 noted that “Professor Nelson filled her talk with case histories … all interesting. Urbana Rotary played a large part in sparking the state’s program—a program which for some years has been one of the best in the Union.”

When Nelson stepped down as director of the speech clinic in 1959, it had 10 full-time therapists. She resumed full-time teaching in speech pathology and oral interpretation, and by then, had advised more than 125 graduate theses. With her national renown, she was often requested as a speaker by groups and organizations across the country. After retiring in 1964, Nelson moved to Dallas and in 1978, received Honors of the Association from the Illinois Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Contributor: Cynthia Johnson Parsons

Editor’s Note: As in many fields, perspectives and terminology in speech and hearing science (also called communication sciences and disorders) have evolved over the years, away from those appearing early in the historical record. For example, our focus has shifted away from correcting a person’s speech defects toward improving the intelligibility of their speech and enhancing the effectiveness of their communication with others.

Tags: SHS at 50

New AI institute to focus on the speech language pathology needs of children

Jan. 10, 2023 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

The award will establish the AI Institute for Exceptional Education to advance foundational AI technologies

The University of Illinois is part of a nine-university consortium led by the University of Buffalo that has been awarded a $20 million grant by the National Science Foundation to establish a national institute that develops artificial intelligence systems that identify and assist young children with speech and/or language processing challenges. The award will establish the AI Institute for Exceptional Education to advance foundational AI technologies, human-centered AI design, and learning science that improve educational outcomes for young children.

The institute will help address the nationwide shortage of speech-language pathologists and provide services to children ages 3 to 10 who are at increased risk of falling behind in their academic and socio-emotional development – issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pamela Hadley, professor and head of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is one of the co-principal investigators for the grant.

“In light of the shortage of speech-language pathologists nationwide, there is a pressing need to develop health technologies that can help identify young children at-risk for speech and language disorders at younger ages and do so more efficiently,” said Hadley, a fellow of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association. “Our multidisciplinary team will enhance automatic speech recognition systems, improving early identification and interventions for children with developmental language disorder and other conditions that affect speech and language. Our team will also create advanced artificial intelligence systems that will support tailored interventions for children on the caseloads of speech-language pathologists. By doing so, we will create educational environments that help children thrive socially and academically.”

Institute will help underserved students

The AI Institute for Exceptional Education will focus on serving the millions of children nationwide who, under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, require speech and language services.
Specially, it will develop two advanced AI solutions: the AI Screener for early identification of potential speech and/or language disorders; and the AI Orchestrator, which will act as a virtual teaching assistant by providing students with ability-based interventions.

The AI Screener will listen to and observe children in the classroom, collecting samples of children’s speech, facial expressions, gestures and other data. It will create weekly summaries of these interactions that catalogue each child’s vocabulary, pronunciation, video snippets and more. These summaries will help teachers monitor their students’ speech and language abilities and, if needed, suggest a formal evaluation with a speech-language pathologist.

The AI Orchestrator is an app that will help speech-language pathologists, most of whom have caseloads so large that they must provide group-based interventions for children instead of individualized care. The app addresses this by recommending personalized content tailored to students’ needs. It continues to monitor students’ progress and adjusts lesson plans to ensure that the interventions are working.

“The AI Institute for Exceptional Education follows 18 already established NSF-led AI Institutes, an ecosystem of AI research and education in pursuit of transformational advances in AI research and development of AI-powered innovation,” NSF Program Director James Donlon said. “We are happy to welcome this new team to the AI Institutes program.”

Institute comprises top research universities

The institute will consist of more than 30 researchers from nine universities including the University of Buffalo; Stanford University; the University of Washington; Cornell University; the University of Nevada, Reno; the University of Texas at El Paso; Penn State University; and the University of Oregon.

Other investigators at Illinois are Heng Ji (Computer Science), Mark Hasegawa-Johnson (Electrical and Computer Engineering), Yun Huang (Information Science), Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky (Special Education), and Windi Krok (Speech and Hearing Science).

“We are eager to see how this team advances AI research to develop better solutions for children with specific speech-language needs, as well as their families and the U.S. schools who serve them. This project is a great example of how we can harness the opportunities that AI technologies can offer to enhance the services that our nation can offer the American people,” NSF Program Director Fengfeng Ke said.

Editor’s note:

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

Tags: National Science Foundation, Pam Hadley

SHS audiologist ‘hopeful’ about hearing aid ruling

Oct. 21, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Adults with mild to moderate hearing loss are able to purchase hearing aids without a prescription

*After a recent FDA decision, hearing aids are now available over the counter*.

A decision by the Food and Drug Administration that permits hearing aids to be sold without consulting a medical professional could be a positive development, Speech and Hearing Science audiologist Sadie Braun said.

But, as she’s fond of saying, consumers might have to “play it by ear”.

The FDA ruling, which was finalized in August and took effect on Oct. 17, allows adults with mild or moderate hearing loss to purchase a hearing aid without prescription. The ruling will create more competition and lead to quick technology advancements and lower device costs, but without FDA approval a company cannot classify its product as a “hearing aid.” Per the FDA, the devices covered are air-conduction hearing aids, which fit either in the ear canal or sit behind the ear. Other types of hearing devices include cochlear implants or bone-anchored systems.

While there are plenty of positives to the new rule, it is important to stress that hearing aids are not a one-size-fits-all proposition, Braun said.

“I am a little nervous about the idea that some people who are self-diagnosing may not actually have a mild-to-moderate hearing loss,” she said. “They might be getting hearing aids that are not ideal for them. More importantly, I’m worried that by removing audiologists and ear, nose, and throat doctors from that process altogether, that patients might not get the care that they need for some of those more significant auditory and medical conditions that can be related to the ears and can be very serious if left untreated, such as acoustic neuromas, and Meniere’s disease, to name a couple.”

Given those concerns, Braun recommends that anyone who is considering trying an over-the-counter device make an appointment with an audiologist for an initial hearing test.

That said, Braun believes the ruling will end up being a good thing for “our patients, for audiology, and for the hearing aid industry on the whole.”

“I think that this legislation definitely opens the door for some of our traditionally underserved and underrepresented populations and communities so that they can obtain devices that can help them hear better that they might not have otherwise been able to obtain,” she said, citing the cost of hearing aids.

The average price for a pair of prescription hearing aids is $4,600, but OTC hearing aids are expected to cost far less. The federal government estimates Americans could save up to $3,000 on hearing aids by choosing OTC brands rather than prescription devices. If that’s the case, the average cost for a pair of OTC hearing aids would be around $1,600. One wrinkle is that there are now several different devices that can be used to amplify sound for a multitude of purposes: hearing aids and Personal Sound Amplification Products, better known as PSAPs, and it can be difficult for consumers to differentiate them.

“The big difference with PSAPs is that they are not meant to treat hearing loss,” Braun said. “They are actually for normal-hearing individuals only. And they’re therefore not classified as medical devices. Instead, they’re considered electronic products. Because of this, they are not regulated at all by the FDA. One example of something the FDA determines with medical devices is age limitations and requirements, and they have stated that OTC aids are ‘not intended for use by individuals who are younger than 18’. However, while they say that in the rules and regulations, they do not require age verification before over-the-counter hearing aid purchase. But on PSAPs, for example, there’s no recommended requirement.”

Another benefit of the FDA OTC rules, Braun believes, is they will go a long way toward ensuring safety standards for OTC devices.

“The rules and regulations that took years to develop and fine-tune are critical pieces in this OTC legislation,” she said. “We really have to have those built-in safety mechanisms to protect the consumer, to make sure the consumer does not get injured. Also, we have to make sure that these devices meet a set of standards, a set of criteria, to be sure that they do what they claim they will do, or what they are intended to do. Without those regulations in place, I would be much more wary of recommending OTC hearing aids as an option for some of my patients who have mild-to-moderate hearing loss.”

Still, Braun cautions that in the early stages of the aftermath of the rules, much is yet to be determined, and she stresses the need for professional guidance.

“Each person has a different and unique set of needs,” she said. “Some individuals can navigate that process, on their own and potentially be successful with over-the-counter devices. I think that other individuals really need that guidance of a professional to help them through the entire process from start to finish and to be there for support and assistance the entire way. Over-the-counter hearing aids cut out the service component, and that professional service component is what a lot of patients really rely heavily on.”

One way to access that professional service is through SHS’s Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology Clinic. You can reach clinicians by calling 217-333-2205 or emailing shsclinic@illinois.edu.

Editor’s note:

To reach Sadie Braun, email svojak@illinois.edu.

Tags: Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Clinic, Hearing aids, Sadie Braun

Serving the profession through mentorship

July 10, 2022 | Anna Flanagan

A 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

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.

Tags: alumni

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