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RESEARCH

Faculty members in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders engage in a variety of innovative basic and applied research studies and welcome student participation and collaboration on all projects.

Each year, both undergraduate and graduate students join faculty members to conduct, present and publish original research. They have presented their findings at state, national and international conferences and have published their findings in the discipline's top professional journals.

For a list recent presentations and publications, see Faculty Research. Additional Information about undergraduate and graduate student research can be found at Student Research.

Dr. Barbara Ehren’s investigation of the effectiveness of her own strategic reading intervention, STRUCTURE YOUR READING, with adolescents who experience language and literacy difficulties.
Drs. Chad Nye and Jamie Schwartz’s systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the effects of interventions in educational and health-related areas such as child language and literacy disabilities, voice disorders, fluency disorders and autism.
Dr. Jennifer Kent-Walsh’s use of descriptive, qualitative and single-subject research designs to explore storybook reading with children who use augmentative and alternative communication systems (AAC) as a context for emergent literacy skill acquisition in families of varying cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
Drs. Kenyatta Rivers and Larry Schutz’s investigations on the prevalence of traumatic brain injury in the college-age population and their development of an effective clinical program that provides support for the students’ academic disabilities at a reasonable cost.
Dr. Bari Ruddy’s new model of therapy delivery for school-age children with hyperfunctional voice disorders (i.e., vocal nodules, polyps and edema) in a game-based format titled “Opera Slinger”. In this research, she studies therapy compliance in order to improve therapy to treat benign vocal pathologies in children.
Dr. Jack Ryalls’ continued exploration of individuals with Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) resulting from strokes or traumatic brain injury.
Dr. Martine Vanryckeghem’s use of mixed-reality speech situations (e.g., talking on the phone) to study the relationship between self-reported emotional reactions in speech situations and physiological correlates and self-reported emotional reactions and speech disruption in individuals who stutter.
Dr. Janet Whiteside’s exploration of portable neuro-imaging technology to measure cerebral blood flow in individuals with brain injuries while performing language and memory tasks.