Faculty Colloquium Series

This speaker series, held once a semester, intends to highlight current research and professional activities in the departmental faculty. Everyone – students, faculty, administrators, and general public - is invited to attend.

Spring 2012
Linda Carozza, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
“Communication Groups and Quality of Life for People With Chronic Aphasia"

Monday, March 12
2:00-3:00 p.m.
St John’s Hall, Room 347, CSD Lounge

Loss of language secondary to a stroke or other neurological injuries generally impacts a person’s life in many ways. Overall community re-integration is the ultimate goal of rehabilitation in these patients. Many people with aphasia turn to aphasia community groups for support after directive therapy has terminated. Effectiveness of community groups and the related issue of evidence-based practice in the community group situation are areas of concern in the profession. This presentation will present a review of literature, current controversies, and describe a forthcoming investigation which will attempt to address the issues of appropriate outcome planning in individuals with chronic aphasia.


Fall 2011

Monica Wagner, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
“Signature Brain Waves to Speech”

Brain waves recorded to spoken words have a “signature” that is associated with each word. Dr. Wagner has identified signature waveforms in native-Polish and native-English adults in response to certain words. Dr. Wagner will explain how these signature waveforms were obtained and will discuss how such waveforms may answer questions concerning brain processing of speech sounds in children with language impairment as well as in typically developing children during infant word recognition.


Spring 2011

Patrick R. Walden, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
“Use of Adult Learning Principles in Clinical Supervision”

Traditionally, supervision research and practice is accomplished through a strictly pedagogical orientation in which supervisees are viewed as learners with learning proclivities similar to those exhibited by children. Current thinking about adult learning, however, posits that adults acquire knowledge differently and for different reasons than children. Approaches to clinical supervision which view the supervisee as an adult with adult proclivities to learn are needed to more appropriately align supervision theory and practice with the reality of adult supervisees in terms of learning processes and motivation for learning. This talk will describe six assumptions which differentiate adult and younger learners and describe an adult-oriented approach to clinical supervision which may be used to guide students’ continued development in the clinical learning process. The concepts covered will likely be of interest to a wide variety of fields which routinely supervise students for their professional training.


Fall 2010

Peggy Jacobson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
“Does Bilingualism Exacerbate Language Impairment?”

Language impairment (LI) exists when children demonstrate extraordinary difficulty in acquiring language in the absence of cognitive, neurological, hearing, or structural deficits. Conventional wisdom among early childhood professionals has been to discourage dual language use for bilingual children who also show LI. The assumption has been that learning two languages will be too confusing for the child and potentially lead to greater impairment. This talk will address aspects of grammatical morphology known to be challenging for Spanish/English speakers in the early and later elementary grades. Outcomes will be discussed in relation to the proposed added difficulties associated with bilingualism.