Past Events Category: Prosem

Liz Ancel, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
150 Russell Laboratories
December 1, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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In speech-language pathology, clinicians often conduct assessment and intervention tasks with children via live voice. When administering these tasks, SLPs may differ in their manner of delivery, even when the content of the task is the same. Based on previous research in child-directed speech (speech directed to children), variability between SLPs' manner of delivery potentially impacts children's language outcomes. However, many findings from existing research in child-directed speech have limited generalizability to clinical settings in speech-language pathology due to their focus on caregiver speech and broad, long-term language outcomes. To better understand the function and role of speech characteristics in clinical settings with children, this presentation will first describe the speech of 31 SLPs administering a common clinical task (sentence repetition) to an imagined adult listener and four imagined child listeners who differ in age and language ability. Then, we will analyze how three different SLPs' usage of adult-directed and child-directed speech impacted children's ability to repeat sentences accurately. The results demonstrate how SLPs' manner of delivery can impact children's language outcomes, which furthers the need for research connecting speech characteristics and child outcomes that encompasses a variety of clinical tasks and child populations.

Jared Cullen, B.S.
150 Russell Laboratories
November 24, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Alexander disease (AxD) is a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disorder caused by dominant gain of function mutations in the glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) gene, leading to protein aggregation, astrocyte dysfunction, white matter degeneration, and progressive neurological decline. Individuals with AxD frequently experience bulbar impairments, including dysphagia, feeding difficulties, compromised airway protection, and dysarthria, however these deficits have not yet been characterized in preclinical animal models. Our research assessed oromotor function in the CRISPR/Cas9-engineered GFAP+/R237H rat model, which carries the rodent equivalent of the severe and clinically prevalent human R239H mutation. To determine whether this model recapitulates clinically observed bulbar motor deficits, we conducted a series of baseline behavioral assays including tongue strength, mastication efficiency, swallowing function, and ultrasonic vocalizations to measure function directly related to swallowing and speech. Findings from this work establish the first evidence of oromotor dysfunction in an AxD animal model, paralleling bulbar motor impairments observed clinically in individuals with AxD. These results strengthen the translational relevance of the GFAP+/R237H rat model and its validity as a robust tool for future mechanistic studies and the development of therapeutic and/or rehabilitative techniques aimed at improving the bulbar function in Alexander disease.

Erik Jorgensen, Au.D., Ph.D.
150 Russell Laboratories
November 17, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Hearing loss is associated with increased risks of loneliness and depression. The mechanisms underlying this association are unknown. In this talk, we outline a possible hearing-related behavior framework for understanding how hearing loss may lead to negative social-emotional health outcomes. The framework posits that acoustic environments and perceptual abilities, including the effects of hearing loss and audiologic intervention, interact in complex ways to influence long-term well-being. We then provide preliminary empirical evidence testing this theory. Our results provide support for our hypothesized pathway from hearing loss to depression; however, the results also suggest that hearing aid use may change daily life behaviors in fundamental ways that call into question traditional philosophies of hearing aid benefit and outcome.

Junseo Cha, M.S.
150 Russell Laboratories
November 3, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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With innovations in gene-targeting therapy, cellular atlases have been widely used in other parts of the body to identify the pathogenesis of diseased organs and to search for potential target genes to cure such diseases. Accordingly, a cell atlas of vocal fold tissues has been constructed during different stages of the vocal fold wound healing process in FVB/NJ mice. After clustering, we identified a total of 23 major cell types, including epithelial, mesenchymal, endothelial, neural, and immune populations. Epithelial clusters were subdivided into secretory, basal, and suprabasal clusters, and immune cells were subdivided to identify myeloid and lymphoid cell populations. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were used to delineate enriched pathways for each of the subclusters to identify their roles in wound healing. Results show an acute inflammatory response mostly in immune cell populations and certain mesenchymal populations during the early stages of wound healing, followed by a high proliferation profile from epithelial populations as the recovery stage progresses. Our data show distinct trajectories of macrophage differentiation throughout the wound healing period, with complex cell-cell communication between epithelial, myeloid, lymphoid, and mesenchymal cell populations. These findings serve as foundational background for future research on vocal fold biology and successful wound healing.

Latifatu Mohammed, M.S.
150 Russell Laboratories
October 27, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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During naturally occurring social interactions, such as conversations, question-response competence, a component of pragmatics, is employed to facilitate interactions, maintain topics, and foster social connectedness. In early childhood, parents use questions to promote children’s language learning. Children become responsive to questions at a very young age, and this ability tends to increase with age. Autistic children and children with fragile X syndrome often have pragmatic language difficulties, including question-response difficulties. In the current study, we aimed to (1) evaluate the response ability of autistic boys and boys with FXS and co-occurring autism to questions during conversations with an examiner, and (2) examine the relationship between the adequacy of their response and their expressive language abilities. Results showed that boys in both groups had high rates of responding to questions. However, autistic boys performed significantly better compared to boys with FXS+ autism in how they responded to the questions and also engaged in questions that both initiated and continued topics. In children with FXS and co-occurring autism, we found relationships between their expressive language and how they responded to questions. These findings add to our knowledge of question-response competence and expressive language among autistic boys and boys with FXS+ autism.

Rebecca Alper, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
150 Russell Laboratories
October 20, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Early language skills are critical to lifelong academic and health outcomes. Experiencing early economic adversity is a group-level risk factor for children's language skill development. However, on the individual, clinical level early interaction quality and language outcomes vary greatly. This talk will focus on examining systems- and individual-level factors associated with early language skills. Furthermore, we will discuss strengths-based approaches for supporting caregiver–child interaction, early language skills, and subsequent outcomes for families experiencing adversity.

Ella Aldridge, M.S., CF-SLP
150 Russell Laboratories
October 6, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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As part of a clinical trial to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of an eight-week lingual strength training paradigm for people with ADRD, this presentation focuses on treatment feasibility and acceptability, from the perspective of patients and caregivers. Treatment-specific factors surrounding device use, instructions, and establishing treatment relevance, as well as patient-specific factors such as fatigue and requiring assistance, inform treatment feasibility. These data can be used to inform personalized treatment adaptations for each unique ADRD patient that can enhance treatment feasibility and acceptability and guide clinical implementation of lingual strengthening for patients with ADRD.

Lily Wagner, Ph.D.
150 Russell Laboratories
September 29, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Strengthening systems of care for children with autism and their families requires innovative, community-driven approaches that reduce disparities and increase timely access to services. This talk will highlight three current initiatives aimed at building more responsive, coordinated systems across settings. First, I will describe the implementation of a novel tele-assessment model in partnership with statewide early intervention (Part C) programs, which has demonstrated early evidence of reducing wait times for autism evaluations in rural and underserved communities. Second, I will discuss a collaboration with Out-of-Home Care systems to co-design an implementation plan for autism screening and care navigation within foster and kinship care, addressing multilevel barriers faced by social workers, caregivers, and children. Finally, I will introduce a new federally funded project that seeks to integrate autism family navigation into outpatient healthcare, using co-design with families and providers to strengthen service coordination and ensure that family priorities guide implementation strategies. Together, these efforts underscore the importance of participatory partnerships, implementation science frameworks, and scalable strategies for reducing disparities and supporting children with autism and their families across the lifespan.

Dhatri Devaraju, Ph.D.
150 Russell Laboratories
September 22, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Stuttering is a speech fluency disorder characterized by repetitions, prolongations and silent blocks in speech production. Although stuttering presents as speech production deficit, the underlying nature is multidimensional involving various processes in development of the disorder. One of the processes posited by internal models for sensorimotor processing is the underlying deficits in auditory feedback monitoring. These deficits can lead to faulty auditory speech representations as the disorder progresses through its developmental course. Individuals who stutter also exhibit temporal processing deficits, which are vital for speech perception, more so in the presence of noise. Thus, deficits in temporal processing can manifest as impaired speech perception in noise in these individuals. In this talk, I will discuss a series of behavioral and electrophysiological (frequency following responses) studies conducted to understand auditory temporal processing in adults who stutter. These findings highlight how auditory temporal processing and speech perception in noise are impacted in this population, warranting further exploration of these essential processes in understanding various factors involved in development of the disorder and its effects on communication.

Stephen Ferrigno, Ph.D.
150 Russell Laboratories
September 15, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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The ability to represent complex sequences is widely considered a critical feature of human cognition with implications for language, counting, social reasoning, music, and action planning. This line of research aims to explore the nature and development of sequence representation, examine the computational mechanisms that support it, and test how these representations influence early learning. I will present evidence that both young children and monkeys can represent and generate novel strings of a hierarchical center-embedded grammar. These results challenge prevailing theories of human uniqueness and suggest that this ability may be evolutionarily conserved and available early in development. In addition, I will discuss recent work into the potential memory architectures that could underlie these representations, including push-down stacks, queues, and content addressable memory. Finally, I will discuss how the cognitive demands of sequence processing intersect with early mathematical learning, particularly in relation to common errors observed in children’s counting and numerical reasoning.