Past Events Category: Prosem

Cristina Manteca Gacho, M.As
62 Goodnight Hall
February 24, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Learning in noisy environments can be challenging, particularly for individuals listening in their second language. This challenge may negatively impact language learning for bilingual students. In this study, we propose to investigate whether background noise limits the ability of Spanish-English bilingual middle schoolers to infer the meaning of novel words from context compared to their monolingual peers. Based on power analyses, we plan to recruit 42 middle school students (21 monolingual English speakers and 21 bilinguals) to address our research question. We hypothesize that bilingual students will show a significantly poorer ability to infer the meaning of novel words in the presence of background noise compared to their monolingual peers. However, we expect no such difference in quiet conditions.

Alejandra Ullauri, Au.D., M.P.H.
62 Goodnight Hall
February 17, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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This presentation will discuss published guidance on language access and health literacy practices and their applicability in audiology clinical services and research spaces.

Ryan Burdick, M.S., CCC-SLP
62 Goodnight Hall
February 3, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Dysphagia and malnutrition are two distinct, yet highly related, conditions. Considering the close relationship between these conditions, it is crucial that the primary providers for each of these conditions mirror this closeness in their clinical practice. This talk will review the results of a mixed methods survey study to evaluate the current status of interdisciplinary collaboration between Speech-Language Pathologists (SLP) and Registered Dietitians (RD). Further the results of this work establish facilitators and barriers to successful collaboration that can be translated into meaningful change within the various institutions where SLPs and RDs converge.

Ruth Litovsky, Ph.D.
62 Goodnight Hall
December 2, 2024 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Humans function best in their auditory environment when they successfully hear speech in noise, locate sound sources, and can engage neural mechanisms that reduce cognitive load demands. Individuals who are deaf and use cochlear implants are challenged by having limited access to acoustic cues, but they also benefit from access to sound in both ears, i.e., bilateral hearing. While bilateral hearing promotes benefit over one-ear (unilateral) hearing, there are many limitations that need to be addressed in order to promote greater success with cochlear implants. Many factors play a role in determining success for cochlear implant users, including neural health along the cochleae, how well patients integrate information across the two ears, neural plasticity, and recovery from auditory deprivation. Our studies use an array of methods to investigate these factors. This presentation will introduce results from studies on spatial hearing abilities, and the impact of using reverse engineering to design novel signal coding strategies for improving outcomes; studies on pupil dilation as an assay for cognitive load in noisy environments and the cost of integrating information from two ears; and eye gaze as measures of decision-making.

Emily Bagan, M.A., CCC-SLP
62 Goodnight Hall
November 25, 2024 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Despite ambiguity and variability in naturalistic environments, adults and children demonstrate a remarkable ability to learn words. Cross-situational word learning (CSWL) is a proposed mechanism for learning where individuals track co-occurrence probabilities to resolve word-referent ambiguity. One aspect of everyday linguistic environments – accented speech – has not yet been tested in the context of CSWL. Yet, learners are regularly faced with situations requiring them to learn words from diverse multilingual speakers, who often have accents. In a series of three experiments, we examine how monolingual English-speaking adults learn and retain novel words across native English-accented and Spanish-accented speech and different time scales. We find that adults can retain novel words learned in both the native and the Spanish-accented accent, and that the effects of accented speech on learning are moderated by both the cognitive load of the learning task, and the retention interval. These findings have implications both for models of learning and memory, and for structuring linguistic environments that are most conducive to learning.

Erik Jorgensen, Au.D., Ph.D., CCC-A
62 Goodnight Hall
November 18, 2024 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Self-report measures are a core tool for evaluating intervention effectiveness in speech and hearing science. Traditionally, these measures are implemented retrospectively, where individuals provide information about their behaviors and feelings during the past month or longer. There are inherent limitations to this approach due to biases in how individuals answer questions about their past. One increasingly popular method to address some of these limitations is to use ecological momentary assessment (EMA), where the behaviors and feelings of individuals are sampled frequently and repeatedly, yielding data with low recall bias and high context resolution. In this talk, I will provide an overview of EMA, including arguments for its feasibility and validity in speech and hearing science. The analyses of these data and the statistical benefits of repeated measures will be discussed. I will also review practical, logistical, and technological considerations for individuals looking to implement this method in their own work. Finally, I will present some of my lab’s recent work using EMA to measure fatigue among adolescents who are hard of hearing and to try and improve predictions of real-world speech-in-noise perception.

Tiffany Chavers Edgar, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
62 Goodnight Hall
November 4, 2024 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Approximately seven million individuals in the United States are diagnosed with an intellectual or developmental disability. Many of these individuals do not develop functional speech and remain non-speaking or minimally speaking throughout their life span. As a result, these individuals face significant deficits in social-communication domains, activities of daily living, and adaptive behavior. Minimally-speaking individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs) are under-served and under-researched. My research aims to address this critical gap in the knowledge base by conducting methodological rigorous and clinically relevant studies in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) and IDDs. This talk will highlight my findings related to the unique language and cognitive profiles of individuals with IDDs and the efficacy of AAC interventions targeting social communication for minimally speaking individuals with IDDs.

Chenelle Walker, M.A., CCC-SLP
62 Goodnight Hall
October 28, 2024 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Within the United States, many African Americans (AAs) switch between African American English (AAE) and Standard American English (SAE) depending on context. While prior research has focused on the impact of linguistic differences between AAE and SAE on literacy performance in children, there is limited understanding of how the two dialects are processed by adults who speak AAE. One hundred adults identifying as Black or African American (M=32 years; 50 males), and characterized by variable levels of exposure to AAE, were recruited through the online experimental platform Prolific. Participants completed an auditory moving window task to investigate how they processed sentences produced in AAE and SAE. Results suggest that bidialectal adults are equally agile at processing both dialects, but that switches between dialects carry costs. Most importantly, bidialectal exposure may facilitate processing of both dialects.

Jenni Wu, M.S., CCC-SLP
62 Goodnight Hall
October 21, 2024 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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While radiation therapy (RT) is an effective oncologic treatment for persons with head and neck cancer (HNC), it frequently results in decreased salivary flow rate and swallowing dysfunction (dysphagia) post-treatment, significantly impacting quality of life. In addition to salivary flow rate, alterations in other salivary characteristics (rheology and pH) can lead to poor oral health but these changes and their impact on swallowing have not been examined following RT. My research is looking at the changes in salivary characteristics, oral health, and swallowing function post-RT. Additionally, my research also is seeking to better understand the relationship between saliva and swallowing in head and neck cancer.

Anumitha Venkatraman, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
62 Goodnight Hall
October 7, 2024 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
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Psychosocial stress and voice disorders are circularly and inextricably linked. While 25% of patients with voice disorders report increased self-perceived psychosocial stress, a single stressful event causes negative acoustic voice changes. Despite an associative relationship between stress and voice disorders, underlying biological mechanisms remain relatively unexplored. In the gut, stress-induced gut microbial dysbiosis (i.e., altered microbial composition), intestinal epithelial barrier dysfunction and altered sensory mechanisms can increase risk of infection and pathogenic invasion, and delay recovery from injury. If replicated in the larynx, stress could increase laryngeal susceptibility to noxious environmental and systemic stimuli. My research explores the relationship between stress and laryngeal biology using animal models, invitro assays and clinical patients with dysphonia.