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The newsletter for & about University of Maryland Department of Hearing & Speech Sciences Alumni

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Welcome, HESP Terps!

Welcome to the new online newsletter of the University of Maryland Department of Hearing & Speech Sciences! Take a peek to find out what our alumni have been up to -

both professionally & personally. !

We hope to have the chance to highlight many of you in future issues, so please visit us at http://go.umd.edu/og3 and share your news with us!

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Humanitarian Trip to Guatemala by Clare Buxton (BA 2002), Au.D.

In April of this year I traveled to Quetzeltenango, Guatemala to work with Healing the Children, a non-profit medical organization, to provide training for four local audiology technicians and audiological care for over 150 children. Healing the Children has been traveling to Guatemala for the past 12 years to train local staff and provide hearing aids for children. The local technicians live in three different areas of the country and are working towards obtaining an international certificate in hearing healthcare. Our team (myself, a doctoral

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audiology student, an interpreter and four local technicians) spent most of our time in and around Quetzeltenago providing hearing evaluations and dispensing hearing aids to children who are not able to afford hearing healthcare. One of the highlights of the trip was spending time at a school for the deaf where we had a chance to watch the students communicate with one another using Guatemalan sign language. Many children in Guatemala do not have access to education in sign language. It is a joy to watch the children communicate and teach signs to those around them. I learned that the signs for “thank you” are very similar in American and Guatemalan sign language! At the end of the week I had a chance to tour the Universidad del Valle Guatemala - Atiplano (UVG) with Dr. Pedro Mateo Pedro, a researcher who will be collaborating with the Language Science Center at the University of Maryland. We hope to work together in the future to blend opportunities for hearing healthcare and language study as training opportunities for students in both universities.

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HESP has been in the news recently!

Three recent papers coming out of the department have been featured in news releases this summer.

Current doctoral student Alessandro Presacco and advisor Dr. Samira Anderson found that some of the listening difficulties faced by older adults aren’t simply the result of a decrease in their auditory abilities, but rather the result of a slowing in how the brain processing speech. This could lead to new approaches in rehabilitation. For the full story, see: http://go.umd.edu/ogq.

Amelie Bail (MA, 2012) and Giovanna Morini (Ph.D, 2014) explored the impact of code- switching (or switching between languages) on parents’ speech to infants and toddlers. They found that all of the parents in their study code-switched, and most did so even in the middle of sentences (saying things like, “Can I have the beso?”), despite concerns that such sentences might be harder for young children to understand. Yet there was no evidence that the mixing of languages by the parents resulted in any poorer vocabulary learning by the children. To read more, see http://go.umd.edu/og4.

Faculty members Rochelle Newman and Nan Bernstein Ratner found that parents who repeat words more often to their infants have children with better language skills a year and a half later. They tracked children’s language longitudinally, and found that toddlers who had stronger language outcomes at 24 months differed in two ways from their peers: their parents had repeated words more often, and they were more tuned in to the language as infants, and thus better able to process what was being said. Both the child and the parent play a role in the child’s outcomes. To read more, see http://go.umd.edu/ogo.

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Congratulations to Casey Gaskins (BA 2016), who has just been awarded the first ever Karin E. Young Memorial Endowment Scholarship. This new award was established by the family of alumna Karin E. Young (MA 1989) in her memory, and provides scholarships for undergraduate students in the Hearing and Speech Sciences who are interested in pursuing a career in audiology.

Casey Gaskins started in Dr. Matt Goupell's lab in the summer of 2014 as a Summer Research Initiative Student, and has continued her involvement in this research since then. She received a Maryland Summer Scholarship this past summer, and is currently pursuing a HESP Honors Thesis. She has presented her work in multiple venues, including giving a prestigious selected talk at the Association for Research in Otolaryngology 38th Midwinter Meeting in Baltimore, MD. She intends to pursue an AuD-PhD in audiology/hearing science with a focus on cochlear implants.

Read more about the Karin E. Young Memorial Endowment for Hearing & Speech Sciences at http://go.umd.edu/ogm.

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UMD, Jewish Social Services Agency to Provide Hearing Aids, Services to Holocaust

Survivors

Through a new partnership, UMD’s Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences (HESP) and the Jewish Social Services Agency (JSSA) are providing hearing aids and aural rehabilitation services to Holocaust survivors. UMD faculty and graduate students will assist in providing hearing aid fittings and screenings for the clients. The selected recipients are clients of JSSA’s Holocaust Survivor Program. As an organization that receives funds from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, and local donors, JSSA assists more than 400 Holocaust survivors who are in financial need in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia.

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“The ability to interact and communicate with others is a basic human right. These clients have shared their stories, experiences and wisdom with their communities over the years; I can think of no better recipients of this equipment and these services than members of JSSA’s Holocaust Survivor Program,” said HESP Clinical Assistant Professor Lisa Rickard.

Each potential candidate will receive a complete hearing evaluation by audiologists in the Rockville area to determine candidacy for the equipment and services. Those selected are being fitted with amplification and will receive training in the use and care of their instruments in addition to aural rehabilitation to maximize the effective use of the hearing aids. Siemens Government Technologies, Inc. and Sivantos. Inc., manufacturer of Siemens hearing instruments, have generously donated 40 pairs of digital behind-the-ear hearing aids to the JSSA to be distributed through the program. “We are extraordinarily grateful to Siemens and Sivantos for this wonderful equipment, which will dramatically increase the quality of life for our clients,” said Professor Rochelle Newman, chair of HESP. “We also are grateful to the JSSA and their clients for placing their trust in our faculty members and doctoral students. This is a wonderful education and service opportunity for the University of Maryland.” The program’s first two clients were recently fitted with hearing aids at JSSA headquarters in October.

“We are thrilled to work with HESP’s extraordinary faculty and students, who continually demonstrate not only their knowledge and expertise, but also their care and commitment to our community,” said Ellen Blalock, JSSA’s Holocaust Survivor Program Coordinator.

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Lisa Rickard, AuD, and a HESP graduate student, Maeve Salanger, met with the program's first two clients to fit them with Siemens hearing aids at JSSA Headquarters in Rockville, MD, in October. These two clients speak Russian, so each was assigned to a case worker at JSSA who is fluent in that language. Neli Melman was the first client to be fitted with a new hearing aid through the program. (John Consoli, University of Maryland)

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Former LEAPster Update by Laura Anderson Wright (Parent)

Kendall got a great deal out of his time at LEAP! Upon graduation, Kendall enrolled at The McLean School for K-4th grade where he had perfect attendance for 5 years! Starting in 5th grade, Kendall enrolled at The Woods Academy in Bethesda. Now a 7th grader, he enjoys science, math, Spanish and social studies. A straight “A” student throughout elementary & middle schools, Kendall is also an accomplished visual artist. He enjoys working with oil, chalk and charcoal. At 5’9” tall, Kendall is a darn good basketball player and middle-distance athlete. Knowing he will be leaving The Woods after 8th grade, he’s already begun the search for an area high school.

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Kendall (left) & his sister

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Several HESP faculty members and current students, representing the UMD chapters of the Student Academy of Audiology and the National Student Speech-Language-Hearing Association, participated in the Walk 4 Hearing fundraising event in Washington, DC on October 24, 2015.

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Class Notes!

Gail Nelson Weissman (BA 1983) is a member of the clinical faculty at Long Island University in New York and also works in a subacute rehabilitation facility. She and a colleague developed an iPad app called Communicaide that helps folks with aphasia communicate their wants and needs, using real photos, voices, and a body chart with a sliding pain meter.

Heather Harris Wright (BA 1994) is working as the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Allied Health Science at East Carolina University. She is married and has one child, age 12.

Mary Dunn Moirangthem (BA 1998) worked in the Midwest for more than 10 years in a transdisciplinary pediatric setting but returned to the East Coast 5 years ago and is now working with adults. She looks forward to returning to pediatrics. Her advice for current students is to take advantage of the many opportunities available on campus for training and research!

Mara Steinberg Lowe (MA 2010) and her husband are living in New York where Mara is a 3rd year doctoral student in the NYU Department of Communicative Sciences & Disorders. Mara works part-time in an acute care hospital.

Amy Albert Morello (MA 2010) is a speech-language pathologist at The Language & Voice Experience in Rockville, MD. She works with adult clients, targeting dysphagia, cognition, and communication and with pediatric feeding clients. She and her husband, Ian, live in Silver Spring, MD with their son, Zander, born in August 2012.

Anna Miller (MA 2012) is working for Adventist Healthcare Physical Health & Rehabilitation Hospital in Rockville, MD. She is a Certified Brain Injury Specialist and recently became certified in LSVT as well. She provides care to both inpatient and outpatient clients.

Travis Conrad (AuD 2013) is a pediatric audiologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He reported that his specialties include: bubble blowing, Elmo, getting angry infants to sleep so that he can test their hearing.

Cathy Torrington Eaton (PhD 2014) is an assistant professor at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, MO. She teaches graduate courses in aphasia, speech sound disorders, and cognitive communication disorders and undergraduate courses in the neural bases of communication, pediatric assessment, and a senior seminar. She is involved in research related to intervention with children with speech sound disorders, a study of supervision mismatches, and is working on a clinical training module for graduate students who are working with individuals with aphasia.

Giovanna Morini (PhD 2014) is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Delaware - School of Education and at the Center for Pediatric Auditory & Speech Sciences at Nemours Alfred I. DuPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, DE. Giovanna and her husband welcomed their first child, a boy, in September 2015!

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HESP Alumna Dr. Heather Harris Wright (BA 1994) has been recognized as a Fellow of the American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Dr. Wright is currently an Associate Dean for Research at Eastern Carolina University and is Director of the Aging & Adult Language Disorders Lab. Her research interests include the interaction between cognitive functions, such as memory and attention, and language processing ability in healthy aging adults and also individuals with acquired neurogenic communication disorders. Dr. Wright was formally recognized at the ASHA Convention in Denver, CO in November 2015.

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Four HESP Terps presented at the 8th World Congress on Fluency Disorders in Lisbon, Portugal in July 2015! From L to R: Mara Steinberg Lowe (MA 2010),

Dr. Nan Bernstein Ratner, Jessica Bauman (MA 2009), & Stacy Wagovich (MA 1995)

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Anna Miller (MA 2012) presented a poster, detailing a complex aphasia case, at the ASHA Convention in Orlando in 2014.

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Our mailing address is: 0100 Lefrak Hall

College Park, MD 20740

http://hesp.umd.edu

Two University of Maryland HESP majors were selected to perform in the choir for Pope Francis's visit to Metro DC! Jourdan Richard, a sophomore, and Laura

Goudreau, a junior, were chosen to sing in the Papal Mass Choir. You can find the entire article in the Diamondback online:

http://go.umd.edu/ofv