NIH Grant Awarded to SPA Researcher
Laura Walkup, former graduate student (M.S. 2013), is being featured in a USGS video of research work done at Hagerman Fossil Beds
NIH Grant Awarded to SPA Researcher
Laura Walkup, former graduate student (M.S. 2013), is being featured in a USGS video of research work done at Hagerman Fossil Beds
Speech Pathology and Audiology researcher, Gerard (Trace) Poll, an associate professor in Speech Pathology and Audiology, has received an Academic Research Enhancement Award (R15) from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) for a project to develop a new assessment of adolescent social communication.
The award totaling $430,604 provides the resources to conduct a large-scale test of the Transition Pragmatics Interview (TPI), a new assessment that identifies adolescents' readiness to communicate for the workplace, independent living, and educational settings after high school. Dr. Poll is collaborating on the project with William Boone, who is faculty in Miami's Educational Psychology department. Janis Petru, a clinical educator at Elmhurst University, is the co-creator of the TPI.
Social communication difficulties are common in adolescents with high-prevalence developmental disabilities, such as autism, ADHD, and language disorders. Those difficulties can contribute to poor adult social and economic outcomes. Interventions to improve social communication are effective when they are tailored to the adolescent’s current level of ability. This new assessment is designed to address this need, enabling speech-language pathologists, teachers, and other professionals to identify intervention goals that align with the goals and abilities of the adolescent.
The grant is designed to involve more Miami University undergraduates in research. Students in SPA's graduate and undergraduate programs will be integral members of the research team.
The research team includes
current GAs, Emily Phelps
and Lexi Sudbrink, and undergraduates,
Jordana Luther and Morgan Streby.
