Speech and Hearing Science | Page 4 | Department of Speech and Hearing Science | College of Applied Health Sciences

Global opportunities

April 03, 2024 | Anna Flanagan

The College of Applied Health Sciences boasts a diverse student body in which 33 percent of the students belong to historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups and 149 students are from other countries

*Jemimah Bakare, right, Emmanuel Dubure and Byron Juma, left, are parts of a growing contingent of Illinois students from Africa (Photo by Michelle Hassel)*

The Republic of Ghana has the second-largest population in West Africa. Until recently, Emmanuel Dubure was one of its more than 32 million inhabitants. He said the part of the country where he grew up faces many health challenges, and he wanted to develop the expertise to make a difference. He chose to study in the United States, he said, because “the U.S. has the best educational system at the graduate level and is a hub for research and experts in many fields.”

Dubure aspires to work at the community level to improve health back home. He learned of Illinois on LinkedIn and liked the idea of obtaining his master’s degree in community health from a well-ranked Research 1 university.

“Most importantly, I chose to come here because the College of Applied Health Sciences had faculty doing good research in my area of interest, which is the use of nutrition education to improve health, particularly in relation to chronic conditions,” he said.

Dubure described his experience at Illinois as “amazing” and said he would strongly recommend it to other international students.

“I have met a lot of wonderful people, both students and professors. The environment here is very stimulating and supportive of learning,” he said. “AHS is very multicultural, which gives you an opportunity to learn about different cultures. It also helps you feel at home because you meet other people from your home country.”

A common sense of humanity

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign boasts one of the largest international student populations among public institutions in the United States. According to the university’s Vision 2030 Global Strategy document, the first international students arrived on campus just four years after the university was founded. In 1907, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign became the first university in the nation to create the position of international student advisor, an early recognition of the benefits of worldwide perspectives in education and scholarship.

Marta Schneider, associate director for global communication at Illinois International, said the university’s global strategy puts a high priority on intentional engagement in Global South countries.

“The number of students from the African continent have indeed been increasing, with Nigeria being among the top 10 represented countries at Illinois in 2021 and 2022,” she said. “The university also is committing resources to increasing ties with Latin America and underrepresented parts of Asia.”

Bill Stewart, interim head of the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, thinks encouraging international enrollments is a good idea.

“A world-class university needs a world-class student body to prepare future professionals for careers that will involve advancing relationships across international and cultural boundaries,” he said. “International students elevate class discussions and activities and research programs by sharing insights and cultural values.”

As a result, he adds, domestic students often better understand cultural differences and similarities and reflect on their own cultural heritage. International students can increase understanding of a common sense of humanity.

This has certainly been the case for Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo, associate professor of kinesiology and community health. Her research addresses disparities in the mental health of women and mothers in different racial, ethnic and immigrant groups and the military. In her Laboratory for Emotion and Stress Assessment, she has graduate students from Nigeria, Ethiopia and The Republic of The Gambia. She said the insights that international students provide on perinatal mental health disparities are critical for addressing the diverse needs of mothers not only globally but also within the United States.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a prestigious institution, and I am extremely proud of being a student here. I wouldn’t want other international students to miss out on these crucial opportunities.

MaryEllen Mendy

Doctoral candidate, Community Health

“International students have lived experiences that are valuable when considering risk factors for perinatal mental health, barriers to care and innovative strategies that respect diverse communities’ cultural and linguistic needs,” Lara-Cinisomo said.

Domestic students also benefit from learning, she added, that while public health crises abroad may appear identical to ones in the United States, they may actually involve layers of complex cultural and political systems that aren’t observed here.

One of Lara-Cinisomo’s mentees, Mary Ellen Mendy, hails from the smallest country within mainland Africa, the Republic of The Gambia. Women in The Gambia face many challenges to their physical and mental health. After completing her Ph.D. in community health, Mendy hopes to apply all that she has learned from this program and her Master of Public Health program at the University of Illinois Springfield to making a difference back home.

“The skills I am developing are already paving the way for my future career as a researcher,” Mendy said. “I have received so much training in the Laboratory for Emotion and Stress Assessment lab, which I greatly value.”

Mendy said she already has recommended the program to friends back in The Gambia: “The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a prestigious institution, and I am extremely proud of being a student here. I wouldn’t want other international students to miss out on these crucial opportunities.”

A wholehearted recommendation

Like their domestic colleagues, international students also benefit from the exposure to different cultures. Kenyan student Byron Juma said he has seen the months fly by as he’s grown “leaps and bounds” from his interactions with students from different parts of the world.

“I have taken classes from different departments and appreciated the opportunities to interact with students from diverse academic and social backgrounds and nationalities,” he said. “Such interactions have enriched my academic life and allowed me to view my research from different perspectives. Furthermore, these interactions have allowed me to learn and appreciate other cultures, thus building my emotional and social intelligence.”

Juma, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in recreation, sport and tourism, has researched doping in sport in Africa and Europe. The unique closed-league system and heavy commercialization of sport in the United States offered an exciting new perspective for his research. The possibility of studying with RST Assistant Professor Julian Woolf, one of the world’s leading scholars on the topic, was also enticing.

“I firmly believe that AHS has some of the best faculty in the country,” Juma said. “Getting a degree in the college counts as a prestigious achievement.”

Juma also noted that the outstanding diversity of the student body in AHS, where 33 percent of the students belong to historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups and 149 students are from other countries, makes it easy to feel at home.
Nigerian student Jemimah Bakare, who is pursuing a master’s degree in community health, agrees.

“The campus’ commitment to diversity and inclusion makes it an attractive choice for an international student,” she said. “The sense of belonging and the opportunities for cultural exchange are enriching aspects of the university experience that I believe are essential for personal growth and academic success.”

Bakare’s interests focus on the management of type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease in older adults. She was drawn to the strong academic and research reputation of the campus and the college as well as the student body diversity.

“The academic rigor and quality of instruction have exceeded my expectations,” she said. “Furthermore, the university’s emphasis on research and practical application of knowledge has provided me with valuable hands-on experiences that will undoubtedly contribute to my future career in community health.”

Because of this combination of academic excellence, diversity and translational research opportunities, Bakare would “wholeheartedly” recommend the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the College of Applied Health Sciences to other Nigerian students. In addition, she said, the support services and resources available to international students at the university help to ensure a smooth transition to life in the United States.

Tags: Byron Juma, Emmanuel Dubure, Jemimah Bakare, Moving Forward, Students

Pamela Hadley honored with Stenberg Endowed professorship

May 6, 2025 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

*Pamela Hadley, center, with faculty and staff of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science (Photo by Craig Pessman)*

The daughter of a farmer in rural Illinois, Pamela Hadley had no “schema” for becoming a university professor. But a high school career filled with self-expression helped guide her toward an illustrious academic career that was culminated with a top honor.

Hadley, the head of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science and a professor, was appointed as the inaugural Charles and Kay Stenberg Endowed Professor in Disability Research in a ceremony on April 30.

The appointment is a testament to Hadley’s decades-long dedication to advancing the science of language development in young children, particularly those with developmental language disorder, said Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, dean of the College of Applied Health Sciences.

“Pam Hadley has made significant contributions to language science through highly regarded translational research, mentored numerous students into clinical and academic careers, and benefitted the department, university and profession at large through a variety of service activities,” Hanley-Maxwell said.

The named professorship “is an honor that is accorded to outstanding scholars who have well-established records of excellence in research, teaching, and public engagement,” Hanley-Maxwell added.

The professorship was made possible by a generous endowment from Charles and Kay Stenberg, both Illinois alumni who experienced firsthand the challenges of navigating life with disabilities in an era before the Americans with Disabilities Act. Though they have passed, their legacy lives on through their commitment to disability research and through the continued support of Kay’s brother, Hugh Wishart.

“Chuck and Kay were passionate about accessibility and believed deeply in supporting research that improves the lives of people with disabilities,” Hanley-Maxwell said.
Hadley also expressed deep gratitude to the Stenberg family, colleagues, students, and family members who shaped her journey.

“This is rightfully a shared honor,” she said. “I’m profoundly humbled to be named the Charles and Kay Stenberg Professor. The Stenbergs faced and overcame many barriers, and they endowed this professorship to help others do the same.”

Hadley reflected on a life shaped by both personal experience and professional purpose. Raised in rural Henry County, Illinois, she credited her parents for instilling in her a love for inquiry and compassion. Her father, a farmer, encouraged her to solve story problems at dinner. Her mother, a nurse, brought her along on Saturday visits to residents in a skilled nursing facility. “We’d call that volunteering as a conversational partner today,” she joked, noting it was her first exposure to the impact of communication in caregiving.

Her academic journey took her from Augustana College, where she experienced immersive clinical training, to the University of Kansas, where she joined a research preschool program that would shape her scholarly trajectory.

“It was in that preschool that I first noticed how children with communication disorders were not socially integrated,” she said. That observation led to a research assistantship, publications, and ultimately a Ph.D. in child language under the mentorship of Professor Mabel Rice.

Pam Hadley has made significant contributions to language science through highly regarded translational research, mentored numerous students into clinical and academic careers, and benefitted the department, university and profession at large through a variety of service activities.

Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell

Dean, College of Applied Health Sciences

Over her career, Hadley has led pioneering longitudinal studies that have reshaped how clinicians and researchers understand early language development. Her work has focused on early identification and intervention for children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)—a condition that affects 7 to 10 percent of school-aged children and often goes undiagnosed until it has already begun to impact learning and social development.

She led a groundbreaking multi-site clinical trial, supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, evaluating a parent-implemented language intervention.

“I’m thrilled to report that the caregiver-implemented intervention resulted in positive effects on vocabulary and grammar,” she said, noting that the professorship would play a critical role in disseminating these findings to clinicians and families.

As head of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Hadley led with empathy and pragmatism during the COVID-19 pandemic. She established virtual check-ins, championed remote accessibility, and helped the department resume clinical services quickly and safely. Her leadership style, she said, is grounded in the deep respect she holds for her colleagues and their shared mission: “to promote improved communication and health for individuals with disabilities across the lifespan.”

Throughout the ceremony, attendees were reminded of Hadley’s enduring commitment to education. Undergraduate and graduate students alike benefit from her guidance, both in the classroom and in the lab. As one of the few national experts on early grammatical assessment and intervention, her work translates directly into tools and strategies used by speech-language pathologists and parents.

In concluding her remarks, Hadley acknowledged her most personal source of support—her family. Her husband, Matt Rispoli, a retired SHS faculty member, and their daughters have shared in the journey.

Watch a video of the investiture ceremony

“They’ve always graciously shared me with my students and my work,” she said, adding that the family’s shared love of hiking serves as a cherished escape from her many professional responsibilities.

As Dean Hanley-Maxwell presented the medallion that accompanies a named professorship, she emphasized what the moment represented: a celebration of achievement, but also a reaffirmation of the university’s mission to foster research that has real-world impact.

“Pam, your outstanding work has added to the prestige of this college and university,” she said. “We are grateful for and proud of your commitment to helping children with language disabilities get a better start in life.”

Editor’s note:

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

Tags: Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, investitures, Moving Forward 2025, Pamela Hadley, SHS

AHS program trains—and pays for—skilled speech-language pathologists

Sept. 25, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

The first, five-student cohort of the REACH-SLP program at Hessel Park. Upon graduation from the speech-language pathology master’s program, each student is committed to serving children with high-intensity communication needs. (Photo by Ethan Simmons)

Between stuttering, language delays and articulation problems, Marjorie Campbell saw the gamut of communication disorders while shadowing a speech-language pathologist (SLP) at Champaign’s Edison Middle School.

She also witnessed “how drastically their quality of life improved when they were given effective communication strategies,” said Campbell, who majored in psychology at Illinois.

“It was something I felt like a lot of kids from underrepresented backgrounds don’t have access to because of financial reasons. I felt like that was a need I wanted to fulfill,” she said.

This fall, Campbell is back on the Illinois campus, training to become an SLP equipped to address those same language needs for school children. And her master’s degree at the Department of Speech and Hearing Science will be almost entirely paid for.

A team of Applied Health Sciences professors obtained a five-year, $1.1 million grant from the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. Department of Education to educate 10 speech-language pathologists: each trained to serve children with high-intensity communication needs, each coming from underrepresented ethnic, economic or linguistic backgrounds.

The first five-student cohort is now settled and learning on campus—the next five will be accepted in two years’ time, when the current students complete the program.

The project is titled Recruitment, Education, and Advancement of Clinical ScHolars in SLP, or “REACH-SLP,” a master’s level program co-directed by AHS faculty Mary Flaherty, the principal investigator and assistant professor in SHS, and Wes Wilson, the co-PI and assistant professor in the Department of Health and Kinesiology. Amy Strohman, a certified SLP and clinical instructor in SHS, also served as project co-director last year.

The grant essentially pays the students through school, covering every SLP-in-training’s tuition, fees and health insurance, while providing a stipend each year they’re enrolled.

“Hopefully they’ll have to take out very little additional loans or hopefully they won’t have to get another job to support themselves, so that they can focus solely on their education, which is what we want,” Wilson said.

In return, each student commits to serving children with communication disorders for at least four years after graduation, in a U.S. school, clinic, or medical setting of their choosing.

“Schools are our goal. We want to flood the schools with these people,” Flaherty said.

Schools are our goal. We want to flood the schools with these people.

Mary Flaherty

SHS assistant professor

Three of the five students in the first cohort are fluently bilingual, and all of them come from diverse ethnic and educational backgrounds. The program is designed to fill two “huge needs,” Wilson added: the shortage of SLPs in school settings—especially those trained for co-occurring communication disorders—and the shortage of bilingual SLPs in general.

Language delays, stuttering or stammering, swallowing problems, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD—any overlaps fall under the “high-intensity needs” banner, Flaherty said.
After their first few weeks on campus, the first members of the REACH-SLP cohort are motivated to make a change.

“I don’t think people realize the shortage of SLPs who are trained to serve that youth,” Campbell said. “I think it’s why it meant so much more to me and the people in the program is we recognize those needs who are often unrecognized by a lot of people.”

Getting the grant

Before coming to Illinois, Marco Barcenas-Consuelo was on what seemed to be a straightforward academic path at the University of Richmond in Virginia. After completing an undergrad degree in neuroscience and minor in linguistics, the Round Lake Beach, Ill., resident was planning to enter the research track.

But after seeing presentations at a linguistics conference, including real-world perspectives from speech-language pathologists, Barcenas-Consuelo realized he wanted to use what he’d learned in school to help children.

He surveyed school openings in his home state, from Northwestern to Rush University to Urbana-Champaign, and learned about the REACH-SLP program at an open house. He sent in his application for the Illinois Department of SHS, not banking on receiving the scholarship. “I liked the program; I liked the rest of what (SHS) offered as a whole.”

“When I first got the general acceptance, I was really, really happy. It’s close to home, it’s a good school. And a couple weeks later they tell you, ‘you got the REACH-SLP, you have the funding, you’ll have this extra support,’” he recalled.

“I was so happy, there isn’t a word to describe how happy I was. For one, it would eliminate any sort of financial worries me and my family had about pursuing this field. And the fact that they’d have monthly meetings giving us guidance, telling you how to work with a specific population, I thought it was a perfect fit.”

He committed to the U. of I. the very next day, without yet setting foot on campus: “Let’s agree to this before they change their mind or something,” Barcenas-Consuelo said.

After spending a year studying abroad in Brazil, and another on a Fulbright scholarship in Portugal, Barcenas-Consuelo is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, the latter of which he grew up speaking in the home.

As part of the program, the REACH-SLP cohort has regular monthly meetups with the faculty leaders. The focus is preparing the students for their future roles in the education setting.

“We’re trying to make it interdisciplinary as much as possible, even though that’s not the main focus of this grant. Because we do recognize any sort of extra enrichment is important,” Wilson said.

Though Wilson’s expertise doesn’t address speech-language pathology directly—he specializes in adapted physical education for students with disabilities—prior experience prepared him to write the grant and help Flaherty run the program.

Wilson pursued a similar collaboration while at the University of Utah, obtaining a grant to train students in both adapted physical education and speech-language pathology. Shortly after accepting his offer to join Illinois faculty, he reached out to Flaherty—before ever meeting in-person—to hit the ground running on a similar project.

Their first interdisciplinary proposal to the U.S. Department of Education didn’t come through, but with a lift from Flaherty, the faculty pivoted. In a matter of weeks, they crafted a new proposal singularly focused on training these skilled preservice SLPs.

The new grant came back from a competitive field in September 2023, two months after their submission to the Department of Education. Wilson decided to stay on the project as co-director.

“I was shocked that we got the grant because I’m not an SLP—I’m more of a hearing scientist. But I work with SLPs. I train SLPs. So obviously, I’m qualified for it. But I just didn’t expect to get the grant as easily as we did,” Flaherty said.

The REACH-SLP project addresses a soft spot for Flaherty’s work as well: Diversifying the speech and hearing science field.

“There is a lack of representation of those groups within the field, SLPs are serving tons of underrepresented groups, but they are not themselves representing that,” she said.

The mission of diversifying the field motivates the project leaders and advisors—including SHS Professor Fatima Husain, chair of the College of Applied Health Sciences’ DEI initiative, and Jennifer Dahman, an SLP and clinical instructor in SHS—as well as the students themselves.

“We all have our own little niches—serving kids who are bilingual or come from low-income communities—I think it’s amazing how all those different issues can come together, and how we can all fill different gaps that need to be filled in speech-language pathology, and provide support for these children who really do need these individualized services.”

Editor’s note:

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

Tags: College of Applied Health Sciences, Mary Flaherty, SHS Fall Newsletter 2024, Students, Wes Wilson

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

SHS student Carbajal speaks her goals into existence

June 03, 2024 | Darina Lubenov

Alexandra Carbajal wants to work with bilingual children as a speech-language pathologist. (Photo provided)

Alexandra Carbajal discovered her passion for her major, Speech and Hearing Science, during her freshman year at the University of Illinois. After that, everything else she found was through drive and dedication.

“I had a speech therapist when I was a kindergartener,” Carbajal said. “So, I know what a speech therapist says—I’ve had that background and familiarity with it. But I never even thought about it as a career until that day.”

The day Carbajal refers to is the day she visited the University of Illinois, after she was accepted as a student, to learn more about the university. Immediately, she was drawn to speech-language pathology, she said. She transferred to the Department of SHS within the College of Applied Health Sciences in her sophomore year.

Now a junior, Carbajal is one of five Humanities in Action scholars at Illinois. The HIA program works with students to remove some of the financial barriers that prevent undergraduate humanities students from taking advantage of community engagement opportunities.

Scholars are matched with a community partner in Champaign-Urbana and work toward a shared goal. As one of these scholars, Carbajal will work closely with a placement that is within her field.

Carbajal’s career goal is to become a bilingual Spanish speech-language pathologist for Spanish- and English-speaking children. She is majoring in speech and hearing science with a concentration in speech-language pathology.

Carbajal is also an intern at The Autism Program, where she participates in play group programs and creates visual resources for individuals on the autism spectrum. Additionally, she had the opportunity to volunteer at two elementary schools as a student teacher aide at the International Prep Academy in Champaign, and as a mentor at Dr. Preston L. Williams Jr. Elementary in Urbana.

“[TAP] has been a really great experience, definitely my favorite experience I’ve had so far. Because I want to be a speech therapist,” Carbajal said, “I know I will be working with the neurodiverse population. So that has really opened my perspective. Seeing their gratitude, they’re always so appreciative, and it just makes me more excited for what I’m going to be going into later.”

Alongside her SHS major, Carbajal also has a minor in Spanish.

“I just love the language,” Carbajal said. “I love the people. I love learning about different cultures, I love learning about how big the needs are for different Spanish communities. But I’ve always known I wanted to work with that population, specifically kids as well. That’s kind of my niche, bilingual kids, I’ve just always seen myself helping them out.”

The immediate effect of her work is one of Carbajal’s favorite parts about the field.

“I’d say just hearing the different stories from the families and the individuals that I work with, I think they all come from different backgrounds,” Carbajal said. “Each week, you get to see the progress that you’ve made. And you get to build a connection with them. And then knowing that you’re helping, not only them, but their families.”

Tags: Alexandra Carbajal, SHS Fall Newsletter 2024, Speech and Hearing Science, University of Illinois

Improving clinical practice and quality of life

May 03, 2024 | Anna Flanagan

Speech and Hearing Science Associate Professors Marie Moore Channell and Laura Mattie have long been interested in the development of communication and life skills in individuals with neurodevelopmental and intellectual disabilities.

Channell directs the Intellectual DisAbilities Communication Lab, where her research team works toward a comprehensive understanding of skills that support day-to-day communication for people with Down syndrome in order to identify and develop strategies for supporting their social and academic success. In Mattie’s Development in Neurogenetic Disabilities Lab, research addresses the early development of individuals with Down syndrome and fragile X syndrome. She, too, aims toward promoting the developmental success and well-being of people with these neurogenetic disabilities.

The scholars’ shared interests have led to fruitful collaborations in the past. They led a team of researchers who used a large, national database developed by the Down Syndrome Cognition Project to characterize variability in IQ, executive functioning, adaptive and challenging behavior, and autism symptomatology among individuals with Down syndrome.

In a paper titled “Capturing cognitive and behavioral variability among individuals with Down syndrome: a latent profile analysis,” published in the Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (2021, 13:16), Channell, Mattie and their co-authors describe three latent classes, or subtypes, of people with Down syndrome that emerged from their analyses.

Those in the “normative” group showed a profile of cognition and behavior that is typically represented in the literature on Down syndrome. Those in the “cognitive” group had lower cognitive scores and adaptive behaviors such as self-care and daily living skills than their peers with Down syndrome, along with high rates of autism symptoms.

Those in the “behavioral” group showed cognitive scores and adaptive behaviors similar to their peers with Down syndrome but had high rates of autism symptoms and challenging behaviors such as hyperactivity and conduct problems. Thus, with a large enough sample size, different patterns of autism symptoms and other characteristics can be seen across individuals with Down syndrome. The ultimate goal in precisely characterizing individual variability within Down syndrome is to optimize daily living through targeted treatments and interventions.

Overcoming diagnostic hurdles

Channell and Mattie currently are collaborating as principal and co-principal investigators on a study funded by the National Institutes of Health INCLUDE Project, which supports research related to the health and quality of life of individuals with Down syndrome. Working with researchers at Emory University, Johns Hopkins University and the Kennedy Krieger Institute, their study seeks to increase understanding of the co-occurrence of autism with Down syndrome to improve its diagnosis and treatment.

“There is a stereotype of people with Down syndrome as happy, social people who can’t have autism,” Channell said. “It’s more common than previously thought, but underdiagnosed.”

Interventions and therapies that people with autism receive could be a beneficial add-on to services offered to individuals with Down syndrome. Part of the problem in diagnosing autism in this population is that autism screening tools that were developed for the general population need to be adapted. To work toward the goal of developing better tools to screen for autism in people with Down syndrome, Channell, Mattie and their collaborators are conducting a nationwide survey of caregivers of youth with Down syndrome in which they are completing existing screening tools and other developmental questionnaires. The researchers will then examine and adapt the screening tools as needed so they can be used by practitioners to determine whom to refer for a full autism evaluation.

They are casting a wide net in hopes not only of representing all the varying abilities within Down syndrome, but also of including groups that are not well represented in the existing research.

“Underrepresentation is a big problem in research related to Down syndrome,” Mattie said. “We have a diverse board of stakeholders, are building relationships with the Black Down Syndrome Association, and targeting rural and Hispanic families as well.”

The questionnaires and other screening tools completed by caregivers are just one element of an autism diagnosis. There also is an in-person evaluation component, which is conducted by either developmental behavioral pediatricians or clinical psychologists who are specifically trained in autism diagnostics and assessment, as well as neuropsychological methods. The difficulty with this aspect of diagnosis is two-fold, Mattie said.

“First, the number of developmental behavioral pediatricians and clinical psychologists with this specialized training is limited, so there’s a bottleneck,” she said. “Also, while they may have expertise in autism, they don’t necessarily know about Down syndrome. So the ability to identify a true co-occurring condition is really lacking.”

Channell and Mattie may be conducting the first large-scale study using the broad screening measures doctors and clinicians give to families when autism is first suspected. Theirs may also be the first study that will explore the use of telehealth to conduct diagnostic evaluations of autism in children with Down syndrome.

“If we can figure out how to make that work, we can increase access to evaluations by specialists,” Channell said. They are working with a clinician at Kennedy Krieger, Natasha Ludwig, who will conduct the evaluations of autism in the telehealth sessions, and with Amy Cohen, director of the University of Illinois Autism Clinic, who will review and “score” the evaluations as well to ensure that evaluation tools will lead to consistent results when used by different clinicians.

With the dual focus on developing effective autism screening and diagnostic tools for individuals with Down syndrome and increasing access to specialists who are skilled in both autism and intellectual disability, Channell and Mattie intend to make a significant and lasting impact on improving the quality of life of a population that has historically been underdiagnosed and underserved. That’s good news for the individuals themselves and their caregivers, as well as the scores of clinicians who dedicate their professional lives to providing the best services possible to their clients.

Tags: Amy Cohen, Development in Neurogenetic Disabilities Lab, Down Syndrome Cognition Project, Intellectual DisAbilities Communication Lab, Kennedy Krieger, Laura Mattie, Marie Moore Channell, Natasha Ludwig, Speech and Hearing Science, University of Illinois Autism Clinic

Homecoming hangout sparked clinical research partnership

May 03, 2024 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Amy Brummel planned to catch the Illini’s Homecoming football game against Wisconsin last October and maybe grab some food at the College of Applied Health Sciences’ pregame tailgate. She had no idea it would lead to a research collaboration.

Brummel, a two-time alumna (B.S. in 1994, M.A. in 1997) of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science, has established a clinical research partnership with SHS Assistant Professor Meaghan McKenna to evaluate a literacy intervention protocol she developed.

The pairing came about innocuously. Brummel only went to the AHS tailgate after getting an email about a celebration of SHS’ 50th anniversary.

“My husband, Pete (B.S., Agricultural Economics, 1985), my son, Tyler, and I were already going to the football game,” Brummel said. “So I said, ‘Let’s go check out this tailgate and see if any of my classmates are there.’”

Brummel did not find any classmates, but when she got up to get food, she encountered Anna Pucilowski, an SHS teaching assistant professor who just happened to be handing out slices of cake.

“I asked, ‘What is the U. of I. researching in the area of literacy? I’m an SLP that specializes in literacy. So (Pucilowski) connected me with Dr. McKenna. And Dr. McKenna and I have been communicating ever since.”

They’ve been more than communicating. Brummel developed an research-based literacy intervention, so McKenna and Brummel are researching the efficacy of the intervention and are planning to disseminate the findings

“The ultimate goal of the intervention is to increase reading automaticity,” Brummel said. “That just means we’re going to improve the decoding ability, or oral reading fluency, of children. This is different than comprehension. This is pure decoding, sounding out words.”

As Brummel explained, when people read, they read automatically—it should be effortless. But when children are struggling to learn to read, they read sound by sound to decode—consciously retrieving each sound in every single word.

But Brummel said a literacy crisis—32 percent of fourth graders in the United States are reading below a proficient level—encouraged her to try to do more to help students. In her private practice, Amy’s Academics, parents ask, “What can I do to help my child?”

“I developed this intervention in my clinic. I provide it to parents for daily practice, and it has been extremely effective in improving automaticity and reading outcomes of my clients,” Brummel said.

Automacity is the ability to do things without occupying the mind with the low-level details required, allowing it to become an automatic response pattern or habit, or, simply, reading without thinking. When children can read with automaticity, they think less about sounding out the words, allowing them to think more about comprehending what they are reading.

As Brummel explained, the intervention is both phonological—manipulating sounds in words—and orthographic—spelling patterns in words—and consists of two phases. The first phase allows for decoding and encoding practice on words with short vowels and what is called “high neighborhood density and high phonotactic probability.” Once automaticity is achieved, the child starts the second phase, which is decoding and encoding words with long vowels, she said.

“The intervention presents the opportunity to practice reading and spelling words while explicitly studying the orthography of the words and deleting and substituting initial phonemes in words,” Brummel said. “The extra exposure to phonological and orthographic patterns allows the child to obtain the additional practice necessary to create mental orthographic images to increase automaticity in their reading.”

McKenna said the intervention is important because “we need to recognize the contributions (speech-language pathologists) can make to speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Brummel agreed.

“We have such dire statistics for children who are struggling to read,” she said. “There are mental and emotional health issues as a result of not being able to learn to read in school, as well as decreased academic and occupational outcomes. I believe that learning to read is the most important thing happening in our schools. We need to make sure 100 percent of our students can read.”

Brummel taught phonetics as an undergraduate teaching assistant and researched morphology in multicultural settings as a graduate research assistant. That work inspired her to earn a clinical doctorate in speech-language pathology with a focus on language and literacy. She first developed the intervention in her private practice and provides it to parents for daily practice.

“It has been extremely effective in improving reading outcomes in my clients. The beauty of it is it’s research-based,” she said. “Dr. McKenna and I are both excited about this intervention because this is the first of its kind. I’ve been using it for years in my clinic, and the outcomes have been amazing. There is nothing like this in the school system, or in the private sector, or anywhere else that I’ve seen.”

Since meeting, Brummel and McKenna have engaged in monthly research practice partnership meetings to evaluate the intervention. They are now recruiting participants and will begin their first study in April.

“If we can do research on this and share it, it’s going to change the lives of children across our country and hopefully help all of these students struggling so they can catch up,” Brummel said. “They will have excellent academic and occupational outcomes, and we’ll help fight this literacy crisis.”

Tags: Amy Brummel, Anna Pucilowski, Automacity, Dr. McKenna, Homecoming, Speech and Hearing Science

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

April 03, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

AHS Get to Know: Laura Mattie, associate professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science

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

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.

Tags: Laura Mattie

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

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