By Charles Ellis Jr., Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Florida summers bring extreme temperatures, high humidity, and the naming of tropical storms and hurricanes. In the speech, language and hearing disciplines, summer is more than weather and offers an opportunity to celebrate National Speech-Language-Hearing Month (May), National Aphasia Awareness Month (June) and Cleft and Craniofacial Awareness and Prevention Month (July). Speech, language and hearing ability is the gateway to socialization, integration and full participation in society.
At the University of Florida, the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences (SLHS) is committed to developing the next generation of practitioners who are dedicated to serving the global community in a focused attempt to improve the lives of individuals with speech, language and hearing related disorders. Department faculty have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to this cause of training students to serve future generations. Examples of the department’s faculty excellence being translated into student accomplishments include:
- Student presentations at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association annual meeting, American Academy of Audiology annual meeting, National Black Speech Language Hearing Association annual meeting, Florida Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists annual meeting, Florida Academy of Audiology annual meeting, and locally at the UF Undergraduate Research Symposium and the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions’ PHHP Days.
- Undergraduate student Ragan Grantham published “Long COVID Among Young Adults: Findings from the Household Pulse Survey” in the Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice.
- Audiology doctoral student Sofia Sanchez won “The People’s Choice” award at the 2024 PHHP Days.
- Audiology doctoral student Amber Gerasimchik received a full travel award to present her research at the 17th Eleanor M. Saffran Conference in Philadelphia.
- Rehabilitation Science doctoral student Elizabeth Evans published four first-author publications in the past year, including “Looking upstream to understand race/ethnicity as a moderator for post-stroke neuroinflammation and a social determinant for post-stroke aphasia outcomes,” in the American Journal of Speech Language Pathology.
- Valaria Gonzalez (MA SLP Class of 2023) is first author of “Disparities in Health Care Utilization Among Deaf and Hard of Hearing Adults,” which was selected as the winner of the 2023 Editor’s Award for the journal Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups. The award highlights impactful works that meet the highest quality standards in research design and presentation.
- Recent graduate Bailey Fawcett won the Best Paper Award at UF’s 2024 Spring Undergraduate Research Symposium for her honors thesis, “Nonword repetition and memory for digits: Are they predictors of sight word reading and decoding?”
- Current students and spring graduates took home top honors at last month’s Florida Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists convention.
UF SLHS is on track to becoming one of the elite departments that house top-notch programs in audiology and speech-language pathology. The heartbeat of those programs are the stellar students that attend UF and select our department. We are grateful to their contributions and encourage the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions community to celebrate our student’s accomplishments as well the summer months designed to celebrate communication and hearing awareness.
To learn more:
National Speech Language and Hearing Month
National Aphasia Awareness Month
Cleft and Craniofacial Awareness and Prevention Month
Charles Ellis is a professor and chair of the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions’ department of speech, language, and hearing sciences.