Issue: Spring 2019
Hear the Turtle The Newsletter for & about the University of Maryland Dept. of Hearing & Speech Sciences Alumni and Supporters
We l c o m e H E S P Te r p s ! Welcome to the 2019 online newletter of the UMD Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences and the UMD Hearing & Speech Clinic! Take a peek to find out what our alumni, students, and department have been up to professionally and personally.
We h o p e t o h ave a c h a n c e t o h i g h l i g h t m a ny o f yo u i n f u t u re i s s u e s , s o p l e a s e v i s i t u s a t : g o . u m d . e d u / H E S Pc l a s s n o te s a n d s h a re yo u r n e w s w i t h u s !
Table of Contents New Hires - Pages 2-3 Clinical activities - Pages 4-5 Student activities - Pages 6-7 Summer Cochlear Implant Intensive Program - Page 8 UMARC Autism Webinars - Page 9 HESP 70th Anniversary Alumni Event - Page 10 LEAP Preschool 25th Anniversary - Page 11 HESP at conferences - Page 12 New laboratories - Page 13 HESP by the numbers - Page 14 Faculty Awards - Page 15 Alumni & student notes - Page 16 ADOS training opportunity - Page 17
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Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
Welcome to our new hires! Dr. Eric Hoover received his Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Northwestern University with adviser Pamela Souza and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of South Florida with advisers David and Ann Eddins. The goal of his work is to develop technologies that remove barriers to communication by applying our understanding of how the auditory system represents complex acoustic environments. His research interests include fitting signal processing algorithms to individual hearing ability, the effect of distortion introduced by hearing devices on the perception of basic acoustic features, and the perception of complex acoustic scenes in people with difficulty understanding speech in noise. Abimbola “Bola” Dawson joined HESP in March. She is a successful Administrative Coordinator, with over 29 years’ experience in higher education, using strong management, leadership, budgeting, financing, administrative and human resource skills. She uses these skills to contribute to the growth, vision and mission of a department/ organization. She began working in the UM Office of International Affairs in 1990, and holds two degrees - a B.S. in human resource management and an M.S. in management at University of Maryland University College. She also mentors female students through the Sister2Sister program. She was an award winner of the President’s Commission on Women’s Issues 2012 Celebration of Women Award. She is married and has two sons. She also loves to bake, sew dresses, and volunteer at senior citizens’ homes.
Dr. Christina Shields joined our department this spring as a Clinical Assistant Professor. She received both her undergraduate degree and her Doctorate in Audiology from the University of Maryland, College Park. She completed her clinical residency at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) in 2013 and was hired as a clinical audiologist at UMMC following graduation. Her clinical background and interests include diagnostic audiometric testing, amplification for adult patients, vestibular assessment, and tinnitus/hyperacusis evaluation and management. 2
Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
New Hires, Continued Eliza A Thompson received her B.S. in Speech & Hearing Sciences from the George Washington University, her M.S. in Communication Sci. and Disoders from Howard University and an Ed.S from GW. Ms. Thompson also obtained an Advanced Certificate in Bilingual/ Bicultural Education from Teacher’s College, Columbia. She has had a long-standing interest in the processes of communication with a focus on child language development and emergent literacy intervention. As a clinician and clinical supervisor, Ms. Thompson has worked in a variety of settings including public schools, private practice and hospitals. She has also served as a clinical supervisor and therapist overseas, specifically, Ghana and Kenya. Ms. Thompson has previously worked as a speech pathologist for the Montgomery County Infants & Toddlers Program as well as an adjunct faculty member and clinical educator at UDC. Her specific clinical interests include bilingual language development, communication in multicultural populations, and language/literacy intervention. Stephanie Grissom joined our department as our new undergraduate student advisor. She received her Master in Public Administration from Bowie State University and a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. Stephanie believes that having a student-centered approach to advising encourages the advisor to make the human connection between institutional processes and students’ matriculation and professional goals. Stephanie comes with six years of advising experience and is excited about her new endeavor to support undergraduates using established academic advising models and techniques. Dr. Lacey Curry will be joining our faculty this summer. She received her Au.D. from James Madison University in Virginia. She has most recently been the Clinical Coordinator of the Audiology Program at East Carolina University in North Carolina, where she supervises and teaches Audiology students to apply classroom learning in the clinical setting while transitioning from novice to independent professionals. With her passion for the profession combined with her experiences, she will be a valuable part of the HESP Department starting in July. 3
Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
Audiology Clinical Activities As part of an ongoing partnership between the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, the Jewish Social Services Agency (JSSA), and several manufacturers, clinical faculty and AuD students travel to JSSA in Rockville, MD to provide hearing aids to low-income Holocaust Survivors. Here, Au.D. student Kathryn Dubois performs real ear verification of the hearing aid programming on a Survivor who is receiving his first pair of hearing aids. HESP students and faculty participated in a Health Fair at Riderwood adult living community in Silver Spring. Residents were eager to learn about hearing loss, tinnitus, balance and falls as well as current assistive devices to manage these concerns. Suggestions for effective communication strategies were also shared with Riderwood residents. Here, Becky Lammers and Kathryn Dubois talk with a Riderwood resident. HESP students were again fortunate to participate in the 7th Annual Student IPE Day at the University Of Maryland Medical Center. Students from a variety of pre-professional training programs such as pharmacy, physical therapy, social work, nursing, medicine, law, and dental hygiene learned about each other’s professions and worked together to take a case history and develop a treatment plan for a standardized patient. 4
Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
Cultural & Linguistic Diversity Speech-Language Pathology students have the option of participating in a specialty track on cultural & linguistic diversity. These students spend 2 years examining the ways that diverse cultural and language backgrounds can impact language, therapy, and diagnostics. Our second cohort of students is just completing their capstone projects for the program - either presentations to the department, or blog posts that will be appear on the department blog site, https://hespinterpretation.com/. Subscribe to HESP InTERPretation to ensure you don’t miss their posts! Kelly Puyear (left) wrote a blog post on “The Model Minority Myth and Its Impact on Service Delivery” Margaret Featherstone (right) presented on “The Importance of Cultural and Linguistic Sensitivity in IEP Meetings”
Tiara Booth’s blog post was on “Bilingual Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Users” Kayla Kaplan (right) wrote on “Elderspeak: Communication and Aging”
Rosa Lemus wrote a blog post on “Using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions to explore influencing cultural factors during treatment of CLD clients” Amber Doctrow’s blog post was on “Culturally competent clinical practice when working with Parkinson’s patients”
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Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
Maryland Day Maryland Day is the campus’s largest community outreach event, bringing over 80,000 community members to campus for a day of learning, fun, and discovery. Hearing and Speech students and faculty hold a wide range of Maryland Day events, including providing free hearing screenings, interactive
demonstrations of listening experiments, voice screenings, and fun
activities for children (such as coloring and making brain hats, playing with bubbles, and making sand art). 6
Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
More student activities
More happy Maryland Day visitors!
HESP students raised nearly $2000 at Walk4Hearing in October to raise awareness about hearing loss. The funds benefit the Hearing Loss Association of America.
Faculty members Eliza Thompson, Sarah Sohns, Nicole Nguyen, and Sandra Gordon-Salant also took part in the Walk4Hearing activities.
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Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
Summer Cochlear Implant Intensive Program This past year, our department and the Maryland Cochlear Implant Center of Excellence (MCICE) introduced a twoweek intensive therapy program for kids ages 3-6 who have significant hearing loss and use hearing aids or cochlear implants. The summer program provides an opportunity for young children to receive individualized and group training in a fun and social classroom setting. And it provides an opportunity for HESP Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology programs to work together to provide clinical services to this unique population. MCICE is a signature project of the MPowering the State initiative, and unites the University of Maryland, College Park, the University of Maryland Medical Center and the University of Maryland-Baltimore School of Medicine to create a premier institution for educational training, clinical services, and basic and translational biomedical research on cochlear implants. To read more, see go.umd.edu/ learningtolisten. Or, to refer a child for this coming year’s summer program, contact the Center at mcice@umd.edu or 301-4054218.
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Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
UMARC Webex series: a webinar series for families In September, 2018, UMARC, in partnership with the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS) and the UMD Alumni Association redesigned UMARC’s outreach program, CLASS (Community Learning- Autism Speaker Series) The UMARC co-directors & the financial planning experts at the live podinto a webinar cast on April 10, 2019. format, making it possible for people to listen to the recorded talks at their convenience. Six webinars were recorded in a series entitled “The Four Pillars of Financial Planning for Special Needs Families” with financial planning experts Chase Phillips, Mark Friese, Matthew Bogin, and Stephen Elville. The first presentation proided an overview of the four pillars (family, legal, benefits, and financial planning) with the subsequent talks related to family decisions, legal concerns, public & employment benefits, and financial planning. The series ended in April with a Q & A where questions were submitted by our UMARC community and answered by our panel of financial experts. Recordings of the webinar are available at http://autism.umd.edu/webex-series.html. Please feel free to recommend this series to clients or friends who might benefit from it. 9
Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
HESP 70th anniversary CEU symposium & alumni event
To celebrate 70 years of speech & hearing at Maryland, we hosted a full-day CEU event, followed by a cocktail reception. Topics included recent research findings, supervision/ mentorship, telepractice, common medication effects, and career pathways. Over 60 people attended the event including a visit from Testudo!
The event was hosted by the HESP Advisory Board, shown to the left, which includes Barbara Sonies, Vic Gladstone, Paul Rao, Tommie Robinson, Melissa Richman, Anne Ferrugiaro, Rochelle Newman, and (not shown) Barbara Libbin, Hallie Bulkin, & Stacey Cole. 10
Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
LEAP preschool turns 25! This year, the Language-Learning Early Advantage Program (LEAP) celebrates its 25th anniversary! LEAP is a one-of-a-kind program, with a unique blend of individualized education and intensive communication intervention. Since its inception, our student clinicians have worked with more than 250 families of preschool-age children with communication delays. In the Fall 2018 semester, we launched a successful fundraising campaign to update our classroom with new educational tools, technology, and therapeutic materials. We hope to continue to modernize LEAP by redesigning our playground outside of Lefrak hall. We are very excited to see where the road ahead will lead us, and to be able to continue to provide this unique educational experience to our students and to the community!
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Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
HESP Faculty, Students and Alumni at Conferences
Advisory Board member Melissa Richman & alumna Kelly Cavanaugh presenting at ASHA.
Alumni Kelly Cavanaugh, Lauren Steedman, and Giovanna Morini reconnect with current students Kelly Puyear and Tiara Booth.
MA student Kerianna Frederick presents at CUNY (right)
Brianna Johnson, Erica Younkin, Kelly Puyear, Lauren Steedman, Lydia Sonenklar, Tiara Booth & Kelly Cavanaugh at ASHA
Ph.D. student Zoe Ovans presents at CUNY
Left: CLD students Rosy Lemus-Elkurd, Maggie Featherstone, Kelly Puyear and Tiara Booth, along with supervisors Eusebia Mont & JosĂŠ Ortiz.
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Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
New laboratories The new Neuroplasticity Research Center opened in February to support the activities of the NIH-funded Program Project Grant entitled, “Neuroplasticity and Auditory Aging.” The Center, located in Lefrak Hall, is approximately 1100 square feet and contains a sound-attenuating booth for conducting intake audiologic evaluations of participants and for conducting a wide range of behavioral and electrophysiologic experiments for the project. The suite also has offices for staff and a small conference room. According to Sandra Gordon-Salant, Principal Investigator of the grant, the overall objective of the three projects and three cores that comprise the Program Project is to examine the evidence that focused auditory and cognitive training re-establishes connections in the brain to improve auditory processing by older people. Over 1,000 participants will be recruited to this study over a 5-year period. Untreated hearing loss has a significant cost to the individual and to society, and barriers to hearing aid use include the service delivery model, legal and technological limits on function and use, and a lack of perceived benefit in challenging environments. The long-term goal of the new Hearing Technology Lab is to leverage new techniques in the assessment of individual differences to improve the design and use of hearing aid algorithms. The work includes evaluating the transmission of auditory cues that underlie complex tasks in the healthy and impaired auditory system, creating efficient clinical versions of validated model-based laboratory assessments, and developing amplification systems that allow people with hearing loss to maximize their residual hearing ability.
The Canine Perception Lab explores how our canine companions think and learn, and the ways in which this is similar to (and different from!) that of young children. In particular, how well can dogs understand what we say to them, and how does this compare to the way toddlers understand us? You can follow our studies (and see lots of cute pictures of our particpants earning their “dog”-torate degrees!) at umddoglab on facebook or instagram. 13
Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
HESP by the Numbers At a recent alumni event, Department Chair Newman provided some updates on how the department has changed and grown over the past few years. Here are some highlights: PhD students over time
25
15 10
45
2018-2019
2017-2018
2016-2017
2015-2016
2014-2015
2013-2014
2012-2013
0
2011-2012
5
2010-2011
We have also been actively growing our research activities, as can be seen
20
2009-2010
First, the department’s PhD program is growing rapidly in both quality and numbers, as show in the graph to the right. (The SLP and AuD programs would certainly grow if we allowed them to do so!)
both in terms of amounts of grant funding and in faculty publication rates (left).
40 35 30 25 20
Total faculty publications per year
15 10
But perhaps more importantly, it also shows up in terms of STUDENT publication rates.
5 0
2009
2010
2011
The graph to the right shows the number of HESP students on published papers or conference papers per year - just 7 years ago we had roughly 5 student-authored papers per year, but now we are upwards of 20, a 4-fold increase!
2012
2013
70
2014
2015
2016
2017
Number of HESP students on published papers or conference presentations per year (excluding papers from before joining department)
60 50 Publications
40
Presentations
30 20 10 0
2012
2013
2014
14
2015
2016
2017
2018
Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
University Awards for HESP Faculty
Kathy Dow-Burger received the 2019 Excellence in Diversity Award from the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences.
Eusebia Mont received the Provost’s Excellence Award for Professional Track Faculty.
Jared Novick was awarded the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences 2018 Excellence in Teaching Award for Tenure-Track Faculty.
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Hear the Turtle
Issue: Spring 2019
ALUMNI & STUDENT NOTES Melissa Mooney Wikoff was elected to the board of directors for the American Tinnitus Association. LaGuinn Sherlock (right) was elected as Chair of the Board.
Recent HESP postdoc Lucy Erickson just accepted a position as Director of Scientific Programs at the Society for Women’s Health Research.
Recent Ph.D. alum Chris Heffner just accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University at Buffalo.
Ph.D. student Erika Exton was just awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
Soon-to-be-alumna Jenna Nelson was just awarded a Fulbright award to study in Spain.
Brittany Jaekel (left) and Maureen Shader (right) both receivied ASHA Foundation Fellowship Awards. To have your updates added to our next newsletter, please contribute them at go.umd.edu/HESPclassnotes. 16
ADOS Training opportunity The University of Maryland Autism Research Consortium (UMARC) and the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences will be hosting its first ever ADOS-2 Clinical Training: Thursday, May 30th – Friday, May 31st, 2019 With the ADOS-2, the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition, clinicians will learn how to assess for autism spectrum disorders in individuals with varying ages and skills. All participants who attend the entire training will receive a Certificate of Attendance for 12 hours signed by Dr. Rachel Hundley. Training will be Dr. Rachel Hundley, PhD, Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Regular Registration $500 ends May 15, 2019 Late Registration $550: May 16 - May 30, 2019 For more information or to register, go to autism.umd.edu/ados-2-training.html
Please consider supporting our initiatives and students: HESP URL: go.umd.edu/givetohesp
Our mailing address is: Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences University of Maryland 0100 Samuel J. LeFrak Hall 7251 Preinkert Dr. College Park, MD 20742