Author: Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Illinois’ McCammon selected for inaugural Team USA wheelchair competition

March 27, 2023 | AHS Staff

Morgan McCammon (right) prepares to shoot.

Morgan McCammon of the University of Illinois has been selected to participate in the inaugural Team USA vs. College All-Star competition taking place at the NCAA Women’s Final Four, as announced Monday by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee and National Wheelchair Basketball Association. 

McCammon will compete for the College All-Star team, and the competition is an effort of the USOPC and NCAA Para-College Inclusion Project, which was established to grow awareness around adaptive sport programming at the collegiate level. 

“I’m very excited for Morgan to have this opportunity to represent Illinois at the Women’s Final Four,” said Stephanie Wheeler, coach of the women’s wheelchair basketball team at Illinois. “Morgan is so deserving of this honor and her selection is a testament to who she is as a person, student and athlete. She will be an incredible representative of Illinois and the sport of wheelchair basketball!”

The college all-star roster is comprised of one athlete from each of the six women’s wheelchair basketball teams across our country. The College All-Stars are comprised of:

  • Abby Bauleke (University of Alabama), one-time Paralympian and Paralympic bronze medalist 
  • Crystal Jones (City University of New York)
  • Grace Wembolua (University of Texas at Arlington), one-time Paralympian
  • Emilee Gustafson (University of Arizona)
  • Mada McCabe (University of Wisconsin-Whitewater)
  • Morgan McCammon (University of Illinois)

Team USA’s roster is comprised of athletes who represented the United States at the Tokyo Paralympic Games. The U.S. roster is comprised of: 

  • Darlene Hunter (Commerce, Mich.), three-time Paralympian and two-time Paralympic medalist
  • Zoe Voris (Chicago), one-time Paralympian and Paralympic bronze medalist 
  • Courtney Ryan (San Diego), one-time Paralympian and Paralympic bronze medalist
  • Natalie Schneider (Ord, Neb.), four-time Paralympian and three-time Paralympic medalist 
  • Lindsey Zurbrugg (Portland), one-time Paralympian and Paralympic bronze medalist

Before the Team USA vs. College All-Star competition tips off, athletes from both teams will volunteer their time to host a wheelchair basketball skills clinic for local athletes with disabilitites. The clinic—hosted by the National Wheelchair Basketball Association—is expected to draw dozens of youth from the Dallas metropolitan area.  

“I am thrilled to be representing the University of Illinois and the NWBA at the Final Four event as we share our sport with the world!,” McCammon said. “Wheelchair basketball has given me the opportunity to conquer dreams I thought I had lost, and I am beyond excited to share my experiences and knowledge with those who are just learning about the sport and the next generation of NWBA athletes.”

Team USA and the College All-Stars will take the court during halftimes of the NCAA Divisions II and III Women’s Final Four, located at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas, Texas, on April 1. 

For more information about the wheelchair basketball at the University of Illinois, please visit https://dres.illinois.edu/. 

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Department of Speech and Hearing Science rose from a humble start

March 09, 2023 | Bruce Adams

In 2023, SHS celebrated its 50th anniversary. The articles below highlight the key people and research that shaped SHS into the strong program it is today.

Dr. Severina Nelson (left) was a pioneer in the field of speech therapy. (photo courtesy University of Illinois Archives)

As humble beginnings go, it would be difficult to top that of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at the University of Illinois.

In 1938, Dr. Severina E. Nelson repurposed a closet in Lincoln Hall to start an outreach program providing speech therapy. She began by assisting a student with some articulation difficulties. Sharing an office with colleagues and unable to find a private room, Nelson said, “Finally, the janitor volunteered to donate his mop closet so that I could set up a speech therapy lab. He moved to the basement.”

If that were all there was to it, Nelson would go down in campus history as one of the more determined, innovative, and resourceful professors at Illinois and as a founder of what, in 1973, became the Department of Speech and Hearing Science (SHS).

But there is more to Severina Nelson, and SHS, than that.

“Nowadays, our culture is notoriously rough on the dedicated person with a cause, especially a woman,” wrote a group of students to Nelson upon her retirement in 1964. “It is true that all new concepts only get recognition after someone has spent years being persistent and farsighted until finally, the disbelievers are made uncomfortable and become believers. You’ve been a woman with a gleam in your eye, and thank heaven, you never became a casualty of our system.”

Nelson earned her B.S. in 1918 and her M.A. in 1923 in English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She began her professional life as a high school teacher in Iowa, coming back to Urbana-Champaign in 1920 as an associate instructor in the Division of Public Speaking in the Department of English. After earning her M.A. degree, she pursued a career teaching interpretive speech. She was an engaging speaker, giving countless readings for campus groups, on tours across Illinois, and on radio shows. This led to her co-authoring a best-selling speech textbook with Charles H. Woolbert in 1927: The Art of Interpretive Speech (with a fourth edition still in press in the 1960s).

In 1932, Nelson was elected president of Sigma Delta Phi, a national honorary women’s dramatic and speaking fraternity. Fittingly, it was Nelson who introduced aviator Amelia Earhart during her March 21, 1935 appearance on campus—two years before Earhart’s disappearance. Nelson had built a profile as a director of dramatic productions, including those for the Women’s League, the annual Homecoming “Stunt Show,” and the Hillel Players.

Nelson earned her Ph.D. in 1938 in Speech Pathology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and then did post-doctoral work at the New York Medical College. The work Nelson began by helping college students with speech difficulties received funding and was then extended to community members. In 1938, she brought clinical practice at the University of Illinois into existence by establishing its speech clinic, serving as its director from 1939-59 and as a professor of speech from 1941-64. Some of Nelson’s early research in speech disorders focused on stuttering. She published three seminal articles from 1939-45 in the Quarterly Journal of Speech and The Journal of Pediatrics, on the role of heredity in stuttering, and in the Journal of Speech Disorders, on stuttering in twin types.

In 1939, the Daily Illini described Nelson as “one of the most popular instructors in summer school,” noting that “her office is different from the usual. Here you open the door and find yourself looking into a full-length mirror. Vanity isn’t the reason for the mirror’s being there. She finds it very useful in her speech correction work. Just during the past year, the speech department has made great advances in this work, and much of it has been under Miss Nelson’s supervision. Patients are studied and classified according to their type of speech defect, then they are turned over to students in speech correction classes for help.” (Please see Editor’s Note below regarding terminology use in historical records) Most of the student therapists were women whom Nelson supported as the faculty advisor to the campus chapter of Zeta Phi Eta, the national women’s speech sorority.

By 1940, Nelson had secured a $2,000 grant to support her clinic and extensive office and clinical space in Gregory Hall, where individuals with cerebral palsy, hearing disabilities, and cleft palate received therapy. She also had established an educational program in speech therapy at the University of Illinois, with four years of undergraduate coursework and one year of graduate study. From 1943-1944, as the chair of a state legislative committee, Nelson delivered 50 to 75 speeches throughout Illinois to win passage of the committee’s bill to provide supplemental funds for local clinical efforts. With the onset of the World War II, veterans were returning with “organic and psychological disabilities.” The clinic’s funding from the farsighted bills in the Illinois legislature was augmented by federal assistance to veterans. Twenty-seven nationwide colleges and universities received this funding, notably clustered in the Midwest around the University of Illinois, including Indiana University, Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, and several branches of what would become the University of Wisconsin system.

The demand for speech and hearing specialists was such that Nelson wrote to her department head in 1945 that the University of Illinois Speech and Hearing Clinic was competing against Army and Navy hospitals to recruit therapists for work in the Champaign and Urbana school districts. By 1946, there had been 16 master’s theses recorded in Speech and Hearing Science.

In 1950, under Nelson’s leadership and advocacy the clinic moved to the Lorado Taft House on campus (though, as she wrote in a letter, Nelson was convinced the University planned to demolish the building.) The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that “her enthusiasm, plus a brisk business-like air, are reflected in the rest of her efficient and enthusiastic staff.” A newsletter describing “Dr. Severina Nelson’s informative, vivid, and impressive account of the Illinois Speech Clinic” to the Urbana Rotary Club in January 1955 noted that “Professor Nelson filled her talk with case histories … all interesting. Urbana Rotary played a large part in sparking the state’s program—a program which for some years has been one of the best in the Union.”

When Nelson stepped down as director of the speech clinic in 1959, it had 10 full-time therapists. She resumed full-time teaching in speech pathology and oral interpretation, and by then, had advised more than 125 graduate theses. With her national renown, she was often requested as a speaker by groups and organizations across the country. After retiring in 1964, Nelson moved to Dallas and in 1978, received Honors of the Association from the Illinois Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Contributor: Cynthia Johnson Parsons

Editor’s Note: As in many fields, perspectives and terminology in speech and hearing science (also called communication sciences and disorders) have evolved over the years, away from those appearing early in the historical record. For example, our focus has shifted away from correcting a person’s speech defects toward improving the intelligibility of their speech and enhancing the effectiveness of their communication with others.

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Zou helps tourism industries build sustainable financing

March 06, 2023 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

In the final year of her doctoral studies, Zou took a class that connected marketing and the financing of park, recreation, and tourism services

Sharon Zou

Growing up in Guangzhou, China, Suiwen “Sharon” Zou quickly learned the importance of marketing a business.

Zou’s parents are entrepreneurs and they run their own factories.

“My parents, they are very savvy business people,” said Zou, an assistant professor in the Dept. of Recreation, Sport and Tourism at the University of Illinois. “Growing up, I was educated by my parents that financial resources are an important means, if not the most important means, to an end. That got me very interested in business, in different business principles. So I always have that in mind.”

When Zou left China for the United States to pursue a graduate degree, she was focused on business. When she chose Texas A&M—in part to be near the person who became her husband—she gravitated toward an interest in marketing because of her advisor, whose research involved marketing.

“I was taking multiple classes, and specifically two classes that really got me to shape my research agenda. One was a class with the marketing department,” she said, “and the class discussed influential papers in psychology and behavioral economics. That started to plant the seeds.”

In the final year of her doctoral studies, she took a class that connected marketing and the financing of park, recreation, and tourism services. That’s when everything clicked for Zou, and she was hooked. Zou completed her Ph.D. at Texas A&M and then, with her husband urging her on, she applied for the job in the College of Applied Health Sciences at Illinois.

“I was not confident I would be able to get tenure here,” she said. “But my husband told me I have the support. So when I came (to Illinois for the job interview), there was this celebrity crush, you know? And then (RST Professor) Monika Stodolska picked me up from the airport. I could not believe it, because I was citing her work. I could not believe I was meeting people that I cited in my research!”

Now, she said, “I study how people have fun.”

Precisely, the overarching goal of Zou’s research is to improve tourism/leisure experience and community well-being by examining consumer’s perceptions and devising innovative marketing practices. 

A recent study involved fee-based pricing at the Indiana Dunes National Park.

Zou said it was vital for public parks and other tourism industries to build a sustainable revenue model and not to solely rely on decreasing funding from state and federal sources. 

The primary purpose of Zou’s study was to “understand visitors’ and surrounding community residents’ perceptions of Indiana Dunes National Park user fees to inform a fee structure that balances revenue generation and equitable access.”

During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, Zou said, “parks saw explosions of people visiting.” While that was great for parks in terms of revenue, it also led to increasing operation costs at a time when government funding for these sites is being reduced.

“The specific goal is to find out how visitors see the park fees, and are they fair?,” Zou said.

The RST researcher said her preliminary findings indicate there was no consensus from study participants on what “fair” means, and that tension between fairness principles partly explains the longstanding controversy and debate on public land user fees.

Zou said tourism industries need to diversify their revenue streams because of declining funding from state and federal agencies.

“It’s like an investment,” she said. “You need to diversify in order to have that sustainability. You need to be more entrepreneurial with your funding sources. As for pricing user fees, how we can design a fee structure based on visitors’ diverse levels of perceptions and willingness-to-pay so that it is more acceptable to the visitors and we’ll get more revenue for the underfunded park services.”

Zou is also working with four local, rural communities—Galena, Savanna, Havana, and Grafton—to build up their tourism industries. Those communities have small populations—in the hundreds—but on the weekends, it grows ten-fold, in some cases.

“The goal of that project is to create a toolkit for a rural community that is underresourced to help to guide their tourism development initiatives,” she said. “We are close to finishing the toolkits.”

One thing is clear from speaking with Zou: she loves her work and her workplace.

“(RST Dept. Head) Carla Santos told me, ‘This is a huge playground. You will have a ton of support to do the research, and you will have a lot of playmates that will play with different toys. And it will be a great place to work.’ And it turns out to be really, really true.”’ 

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Geiger to assess effects of some chemicals on children’s sleep

Feb. 14, 2023 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Endocrine disrupting chemicals are found in many common household items, and our blood

PFAS are found in many common household items and found in our blood.

Multiple studies have shown that children who regularly get an adequate amount of sleep have improved attention, behavior, learning, memory, and overall mental and physical health. Not getting enough sleep can lead to high blood pressure, obesity and depression. An Illinois researcher wants to help mitigate those sleep issues. 

Kinesiology and Community Health assistant professor Sarah Geiger is planning to assess how the exposure to certain chemicals while in the womb affects child sleep later in life and can lead to poorer health outcomes. Geiger’s study is funded by an R03 grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) component dedicated to environmental health research. In the grant application, Geiger writes that “the potential for prenatal exposures to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) to adversely impact children’s health is a growing public health issue.” As Geiger explains, perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are EDCs found in many common household items and found in our blood.

“They’re so pervasive in terms of products,” said Geiger, who investigates environmental pollutants and chronic disease risk factors, including sleep problems, among children. “Studies have shown them to be found in foods (and) they’re notorious for these non-stick surfaces, but that’s really just one of so many types of things they’re in. Plastic water bottles, plastic fast food containers. They’re even in biomedical devices and things like IV bags and makeup, all sorts of cosmetics, nail polish.”

Geiger said her study is looking at the pregnant mom’s concentrations of those chemicals in her blood, and then looking at outcomes in children.

“We’re measuring her levels as a proxy of what they’re being exposed to,” Geiger said. “The idea is that developmental exposure in the womb to those chemicals that their mother has been exposed to is somehow altering their development and manifesting later as sleep problems. What we’re really interested in is looking at the association between the two. Are moms with higher levels of these chemicals in their blood more likely to have children who have poorer sleep quality? And if so, then we can think about maybe what is the mechanism that is causing that to happen?”

Geiger added that the study is not only looking at how chemical exposure in the womb affects child sleep later on, but also how stress and depression and other factors during pregnancy can affect child’s sleep later on. The study is important, Geiger said, because sleep, or the lack of it, is a predictor for health. Lack of sleep for a child can lead them to be unfocused and unproductive. And a lack of sleep in childhood is predictive of sleep issues in adulthood, she said, adding that sleep problems in adulthood cost the U.S. billions of in health care.

Another reason this research is important is how long certain PFAS can stay in a person’s body.

“They are sometimes called forever chemicals; they have an extremely long half-life compared to other types of endocrine-disrupting chemicals,” Geiger said. “The half-life might be like five years. Let’s say you have a certain level of this one chemical in your blood, after five years, half of it would have been metabolized or excreted from your body. To give you a comparison, like BPA (bisphenol A), another common endocrine-disrupting chemical, the half life is more like five hours.”

As important as the research is, Geiger is realistic that studies like hers and others are not likely to force companies to limit their use of PFAS.

“These are extremely powerful market forces … I would like to think that all of the research combined on sleep and other things may apply some pressure, but—and I do think that the end goal is to try to remove or limit these types of chemicals if they are harmful—but that’s much easier said than done. It’s a pretty difficult task. 

Editor’s note:

To reach Sarah Geiger, email smurphy7@illinois.edu.
 

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New AI institute to focus on the speech language pathology needs of children

Jan. 10, 2023 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

The award will establish the AI Institute for Exceptional Education to advance foundational AI technologies

The University of Illinois is part of a nine-university consortium led by the University of Buffalo that has been awarded a $20 million grant by the National Science Foundation to establish a national institute that develops artificial intelligence systems that identify and assist young children with speech and/or language processing challenges. The award will establish the AI Institute for Exceptional Education to advance foundational AI technologies, human-centered AI design, and learning science that improve educational outcomes for young children. 

The institute will help address the nationwide shortage of speech-language pathologists and provide services to children ages 3 to 10 who are at increased risk of falling behind in their academic and socio-emotional development – issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pamela Hadley, professor and head of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is one of the co-principal investigators for the grant. 

“In light of the shortage of speech-language pathologists nationwide, there is a pressing need to develop health technologies that can help identify young children at-risk for speech and language disorders at younger ages and do so more efficiently,” said Hadley, a fellow of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association. “Our multidisciplinary team will enhance automatic speech recognition systems, improving early identification and interventions for children with developmental language disorder and other conditions that affect speech and language. Our team will also create advanced artificial intelligence systems that will support tailored interventions for children on the caseloads of speech-language pathologists. By doing so, we will create educational environments that help children thrive socially and academically.”

Institute will help underserved students

The AI Institute for Exceptional Education will focus on serving the millions of children nationwide who, under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, require speech and language services.
Specially, it will develop two advanced AI solutions: the AI Screener for early identification of potential speech and/or language disorders; and the AI Orchestrator, which will act as a virtual teaching assistant by providing students with ability-based interventions.

The AI Screener will listen to and observe children in the classroom, collecting samples of children’s speech, facial expressions, gestures and other data. It will create weekly summaries of these interactions that catalogue each child’s vocabulary, pronunciation, video snippets and more. These summaries will help teachers monitor their students’ speech and language abilities and, if needed, suggest a formal evaluation with a speech-language pathologist.

The AI Orchestrator is an app that will help speech-language pathologists, most of whom have caseloads so large that they must provide group-based interventions for children instead of individualized care. The app addresses this by recommending personalized content tailored to students’ needs. It continues to monitor students’ progress and adjusts lesson plans to ensure that the interventions are working.

“The AI Institute for Exceptional Education follows 18 already established NSF-led AI Institutes, an ecosystem of AI research and education in pursuit of transformational advances in AI research and development of AI-powered innovation,” NSF Program Director James Donlon said. “We are happy to welcome this new team to the AI Institutes program.”

Institute comprises top research universities

The institute will consist of more than 30 researchers from nine universities including the University of Buffalo; Stanford University; the University of Washington; Cornell University; the University of Nevada, Reno; the University of Texas at El Paso; Penn State University; and the University of Oregon.

Other investigators at Illinois are Heng Ji (Computer Science), Mark Hasegawa-Johnson (Electrical and Computer Engineering), Yun Huang (Information Science), Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky (Special Education), and Windi Krok (Speech and Hearing Science).

“We are eager to see how this team advances AI research to develop better solutions for children with specific speech-language needs, as well as their families and the U.S. schools who serve them. This project is a great example of how we can harness the opportunities that AI technologies can offer to enhance the services that our nation can offer the American people,” NSF Program Director Fengfeng Ke said.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Stretching their Reach: Robotic support for older individuals

Jan. 09, 2023 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

The goal is to create a scalable, affordable, flexible Stretch Cognitive and Physical Assistant that can improve the quality of life for older adults with a range of cognitive and physical impairments

University of Illinois researcher Dr. Wendy Rogers is stretching her work with Stretch the Robot.

The Kinesiology and Community Health professor has received a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Institute on Aging (National Institutes of Health), for approximately $2.5 million.

The research will be conducted between December 2022 and November 2024 and builds on a Phase I grant that Rogers and Dr. Aaron Edsinger, CEO of Hello Robot, received last year. Other Illinois collaborators on the new grant include Speech and Hearing Science Associate Professor Raksha Mudar and Harshal Mahajan, Assistant Director of Research for the McKechnie Family LIFE Home. Also part of the new team are ClarkLindsey, an independent, senior living community in Urbana, Ill.; Dr. Vy Nguyen, an occupational therapist at Hello Robot; and Dr. Charlie Kemp, director of the Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech and CTO of Hello Robot.

Phase I explored the use of Stretch, a research robot designed by Kemp & Edsinger, to support everyday activities through use of a lightweight telescoping arm mounted on a mobile base. That research identified home tasks for which support is needed; developed tools to enable Stretch to effectively perform these tasks; and designed an easy-to-use interface that older adults can use to control Stretch to carry out their desired tasks.

The Phase II grant will advance the capabilities of Stretch, in partnership with ClarkLindsey, focusing on physical and cognitive tasks. The aim is to determine how assistive robots can support the needs of older adults with cognitive impairment in addition to those with mobility impairment. The researchers plan to refine the remote control interface to be used by caregivers, develop autonomous activities for Stretch, and explore Stretch’s utility in a variety of home environments, including common rooms with multiple people. 

The goal is to create a scalable, affordable, flexible Stretch Cognitive and Physical Assistant that can improve the quality of life for older adults with a range of cognitive and physical impairments, the researchers say.

In addition to ClarkLindsey, research and testing for this grant will be conducted at the McKechnie Family LIFE Home on the University of Illinois campus.
 

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Illinois inducted into U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee Inaugural Team USA Collegiate Impact Award Class of 2020

Dec. 01, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Illinois was one of four schools inducted into the inaugural class

Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, left, represented AHS and DRES at the Hall of Fame induction

The University of Illinois was on Tuesday inducted into the Team USA Collegiate Impact Award Class of 2020. The induction by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee honors the top-performing schools represented on Team USA at the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020. Illinois was one of four schools inducted into the inaugural class, which was recognized during the Team USA Collegiate Recognition Awards as part of the National Football Foundation’s 64th Annual Awards celebration in Las Vegas. 

“It’s an incredible honor for our student-athletes—our Paralympians—to be recognized as members of the inaugural class for the Team USA Collegiate Impact Award,” said Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, dean of the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign. “The dedication—and resulting accomplishments—of our athletes, coaches, and others cannot be understated. I’m so proud of this team.”

Team USA Collegiate Impact Award Class of 2020

In Tokyo, 122 U.S. Paralympians and 475 U.S. Olympians competed collegiately during their journey to Team USA. Together they hailed from 223 schools across the country. The inductees into the Team USA Collegiate Impact Award Class of 2020 together helped lead to the success of 20 U.S. athletes at the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 and 70 U.S. athletes at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. These four schools had 52 athletes bring home medals for their school communities and country. The Class of 2020 is comprised of:

  • Paralympic Gold Award: University of Illinois; 20 U.S. Paralympians and nine U.S. medalists.
  • Olympic Gold Award: Stanford University; 35 U.S. Olympians and 19 U.S. medalists.
  • Olympic Silver Award: University of California, Los Angeles; 21 U.S. Olympians and 14 U.S. medalists.
  • Olympic Bronze Award: University of Florida; 14 U.S. Olympians and 10 U.S. medalists

“The collegiate athletics system is essential to growing and keeping sport strong in our country,” said USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland. “Athletes who competed collegiately were the foundation of Team USA’s success in Tokyo and Beijing. We’re excited to honor the leaders who foster these sport opportunities and support student-athletes on campus.”

At the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo—the most recent Summer Games—athletes who train at the University of Illinois won 11 individual medals, while team sports, such as men and women’s wheelchair basketball, also took home medals.

  • The first-ever U.S. Paralympic gold medalist was a former Illinois student, Jack Whitman, who won the gold medal in archery at Rome 1960.
  • Disability Resources and Educational Services Founder Dr. Tim Nugent was inducted into the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Hall of Fame in 2019 for his contributions as the father of accessibility.
  • Paralympian stars such as Jean Driscoll, Linda Mastandrea, Tatyana McFadden, Daniel Romanchuk, Susannah Scaroni, Steve Serio and others all trained at Illinois.
  • Wheelchair track coach Adam Bleakney is a three-time U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee Paralympic Coach of the Year and a Paralympic medalist himself.

More information about the Team USA Collegiate Recognition Awards—and about Team USA’s collegiate footprint in Tokyo—can be found online at TeamUSA.org/CollegiateImpact. More information about Illinois’ Paralympians can be found at https://ahs.illinois.edu/taxonomy/term/60 or at disability.illinois.edu/athletics. 
 

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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KCH’s Richards gets Fulbright to complete project in Australia

Nov. 29, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Kevin Andrew Richards

Kinesiology and Community Health Associate Professor Kevin Andrew Richards has received a Fulbright Specialist Program award from the U.S. Dept. of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Dr. Richards will complete a project at the University of Canberra in Australia that aims to exchange knowledge and establish partnerships benefitting participants, institutions and communities both in the United States and overseas through a variety of educational and training activities within education.

He is one of more than 400 U.S. citizens each year who share their expertise with host nations through the Fulbright Specialist Program. Fulbright Specialist Program winners are selected based on their academic and professional achievements, demonstrated leadership in their field and potential to foster long-term cooperations between institutions in the U.S. and abroad.

For more information on the Fulbright Specialist Program, visit https://eca.state.gov/fulbright.

Editor’s note:

To reach Kevin Richards, email karichar@illinois.edu.
 

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SHS audiologist ‘hopeful’ about hearing aid ruling

Oct. 21, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Adults with mild to moderate hearing loss are able to purchase hearing aids without a prescription

After a recent FDA decision, hearing aids are now available over the counter.

A decision by the Food and Drug Administration that permits hearing aids to be sold without consulting a medical professional could be a positive development, Speech and Hearing Science audiologist Sadie Braun said.

But, as she’s fond of saying, consumers might have to “play it by ear”.

The FDA ruling, which was finalized in August and took effect on Oct. 17, allows adults with mild or moderate hearing loss to purchase a hearing aid without prescription. The ruling will create more competition and lead to quick technology advancements and lower device costs, but without FDA approval a company cannot classify its product as a “hearing aid.” Per the FDA, the devices covered are air-conduction hearing aids, which fit either in the ear canal or sit behind the ear. Other types of hearing  devices include cochlear implants or bone-anchored systems.

While there are plenty of positives to the new rule, it is important to stress that hearing aids are not a one-size-fits-all proposition, Braun said.

“I am a little nervous about the idea that some people who are self-diagnosing may not actually have a mild-to-moderate hearing loss,” she said. “They might be getting hearing aids that are not ideal for them. More importantly, I’m worried that by removing audiologists and ear, nose, and throat doctors from that process altogether, that patients might not get the care that they need for some of those more significant auditory and medical conditions that can be related to the ears and can be very serious if left untreated, such as acoustic neuromas, and Meniere’s disease, to name a couple.”

Given those concerns, Braun recommends that anyone who is considering trying an over-the-counter device make an appointment with an audiologist for an initial hearing test.

That said, Braun believes the ruling will end up being a good thing for “our patients, for audiology, and for the hearing aid industry on the whole.”

“I think that this legislation definitely opens the door for some of our traditionally underserved and underrepresented populations and communities so that they can obtain devices that can help them hear better that they might not have otherwise been able to obtain,” she said, citing the cost of hearing aids. 

The average price for a pair of prescription hearing aids is $4,600, but OTC hearing aids are expected to cost far less. The federal government estimates Americans could save up to $3,000 on hearing aids by choosing OTC brands rather than prescription devices. If that’s the case, the average cost for a pair of OTC hearing aids would be around $1,600. One wrinkle is that there are now several different devices that can be used to amplify sound for a multitude of purposes: hearing aids and Personal Sound Amplification Products, better known as PSAPs, and it can be difficult for consumers to differentiate them.

“The big difference with PSAPs is that they are not meant to treat hearing loss,” Braun said. “They are actually for normal-hearing individuals only. And they’re therefore not classified as medical devices. Instead, they’re considered electronic products. Because of this, they are not regulated at all by the FDA. One example of something the FDA determines with medical devices is age limitations and requirements, and they have stated that OTC aids are ‘not intended for use by individuals who are younger than 18’.  However, while they say that in the rules and regulations, they do not require age verification before over-the-counter hearing aid purchase. But on PSAPs, for example, there’s no recommended requirement.”

Another benefit of the FDA OTC rules, Braun believes, is they will go a long way toward ensuring safety standards for OTC devices.

“The rules and regulations that took years to develop and fine-tune are critical pieces in this OTC legislation,” she said. “We really have to have those built-in safety mechanisms to protect the consumer, to make sure the consumer does not get injured. Also, we have to make sure that these devices meet a set of standards, a set of criteria, to be sure that they do what they claim they will do, or what they are intended to do. Without those regulations in place, I would be much more wary of recommending OTC hearing aids as an option for some of my patients who have mild-to-moderate hearing loss.”

Still, Braun cautions that in the early stages of the aftermath of the rules, much is yet to be determined, and she stresses the need for professional guidance.

“Each person has a different and unique set of needs,” she said. “Some individuals can navigate that process, on their own and potentially be successful with over-the-counter devices. I think that other individuals really need that guidance of a professional to help them through the entire process from start to finish and to be there for support and assistance the entire way. Over-the-counter hearing aids cut out the service component, and that professional service component is what a lot of patients really rely heavily on.”

One way to access that professional service is through SHS’s Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology Clinic. You can reach clinicians by calling 217-333-2205 or emailing shsclinic@illinois.edu.
 

Editor’s note:

To reach Sadie Braun, email svojak@illinois.edu.
 

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Q&A with RST student Emily Jordan

Oct. 22, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Vince Lara at the University of Illinois spoke with RST student Emily Jordan about her academic career, her Joan Braswell Scholarship, her work with the NJACC tournament and why she chose RST.

VINCE LARA: All right, so Emily, the first question I wanted to ask you is what made you choose the University of Illinois?

EMILY JORDAN: Well, originally, back in 2020, when I was about to graduate with my associate’s degree, I went to Danville Area Community College, where my associate’s is from. My original plan, before COVID hit, I went and visited three different schools, and the U of I was one of them just because I actually only live about 45 minutes away from campus, so I grew up coming over here coming the games and stuff all the time. So I was already kind of familiar with everything. I just wanted to see what the actual school was like.

So when I visited here originally, I was thinking I was going to major in communications because that’s what my associate’s is in. So when I did my visit over here, I actually spoke with a communications advisor, and I told her what I wanted to do and everything, and she actually redirected me to RST, which is where I’ll be graduating now. So that’s how it ended up. I realized that it was a good fit for me. I’m familiar with it over here. I could live at home, save money, and everything like that, so that ended up being why I came over here.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, and that answers the second question I had for you, which was why RST? And RST does have some similarities to communications. So when you were looking into RST at first, what really appealed to you there?

EMILY JORDAN: I guess I wanted something that was very people-based. I feel like I need communication with people all the time. I don’t see myself working at a sit down job. I need that interaction and everything. And so when I looked into RST more, after discussing different options with that communications advisor, I kind of figured out like, OK, these classes look really appealing to me, it all seems really enjoyable and something that could lead me to a really strong career, and it’s focusing on something that I really want to do, and more sport-based.

Communications is like a big bubble, so it’s really wide, and that’s why you can kind of go different routes with them. So that’s why I wasn’t sure what it was like over here, but I realized that RST encompassed a lot of things that I wanted to learn about and kind of navigate through as I got my bachelor’s degree.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, that’s a good point. And you talked about it being a big bubble, but it’s interesting that I noticed recently– part of the reason I’m having Emily on the podcast is that she won the Joan Braswell Scholarship at the RST scholarship ceremony, and as part of that social media post that we did over here, it mentioned that you wanted to be an athletic director. So I wonder how you made that leap from a communications associate’s degree to RST to now thinking about that as a future career?

EMILY JORDAN: Well, I took a class last semester, in the fall of 2021, and actually, that was my first semester physically on campus because my junior year, when I transferred here, everything was online. So when I came over here in person as a senior last semester, I was kind of worried and intimidated a little bit– a big school and everything. But once I got settled down in the classes and stuff, I felt comfortable in everything.

But one of the classes that I took was Dr. Welty-Peachey’s class. It’s RST 430, and it’s a Sport and Development class, and that was probably one of my favorite ones I’ve taken over here. It talks about how we can use sport as a tool to kind of help develop athletes and develop different parts of life as well as helping athletes be better in the sport that they want to be in.

And I think that kind of opened my eyes as to, OK, I think I have a passion for trying to fix the problems that are within sports because obviously, everything has issues and flaws, but I think that that’s where I found my passion was that I want to keep, especially, kids and youth and high school athletes involved in sports just because I know all the benefits that come from playing and participating in them.

So that’s kind of where I learned like, OK, I feel like, as an athletic director, I could help navigate athletes into the routes that they want to go in and steer them in the right direction and resolve those problems that are taking place as of today. And that’s kind of where I learned that being an AD might be a good fit for me.

VINCE LARA: I’m curious about what or who inspired your love of sports.

EMILY JORDAN: So I’m the youngest of my family. I have two older brothers, and I grew up watching them play sports. They played soccer, a little bit of football, a lot of basketball, track, baseball a little bit, so I just like grew up watching them play everything and, of course, as a younger little sister, you want to do everything that your older brothers or siblings are doing.

So that’s kind of how I got into playing T-ball as a little kid, and then that grew into softball, and then I played soccer just like they did and ended up playing school volleyball, and I ran a little bit of track and played basketball like them. So that’s kind of where it stemmed from. I mentioned before, too, we would always as a family come over to the U of I and watch basketball games and football games. So I kind of just grew up playing them and being around them all the time. We talk about it all the time still today. So that’s kind of where that all stems from.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, that makes sense. And recently, you were an announcer for the Men’s National Junior College Athletic Association Division II basketball tournament. How did that come about? Did you express interest? Did someone seek you out? Tell me how that came together.

EMILY JORDAN: When I was at Danville Area Community College, I took some college classes, like dual credit classes, in high school, so I was already familiar with DACC. And then when I graduated high school, that’s where I finished my associates at for that remaining one year. And one of the classes I took was like a media production class, and the assistant professor I had, her named Laura Hensgen, and she’s kind of in charge of the media department there and everything, and DACC has hosted that tournament, the championship portion of the tournament for– I think it’s been 29 years, I believe. So they’re very familiar with it and everything.

So they have broadcasters and the radio and the livestream come out and everything, and there was myself and another student in her class at the time that was interested in media broadcasting, media stuff, sports in general, and she just asked us if we would be interested in doing it, if that would be a good opportunity to expand our horizons a little bit and get us some experience and everything. So I’m not going to lie, I was a little intimidated just because it’s a big setting and everything, but myself and the other student ended up doing it that first year of 2020.

But then, of course, COVID happened, so that season got cut short. And then when I actually came over here to the U of I my junior year, she asked me to come back, even though I wasn’t a student at DACC anymore. She asked me to come back and commentate again, and so I did it with that student there that following year, as well as I did it with my dad too. So it was really cool to do it, come back and do it, and do it for a full season because I didn’t get that opportunity before. But that’s kind of how it all got started and everything.

VINCE LARA: You said you did it with your dad. Is your dad a broadcaster?

EMILY JORDAN: Yeah, so I live over in Vermilion County, and one of the radio stations, he will do some high school basketball games here and there. And they’ve asked him to do that tournament, the NJCAA tournament there, so he did that one with me. We’ve actually called some of the Vermilion County high school basketball tournament games together too, so it’s been really fun to have that experience with my dad too because, obviously, that doesn’t come around too often, but it was really a lot of fun to do it with him as well as with that teacher at DACC and the other student at DACC.

VINCE LARA: Sure, and DACC being, of course, Danville Area Community College, just for our listeners’ context there. So the obvious next question to you is why not pursue sports media because it seems like you’re really passionate about it and your dad is involved, and so why not go that way?

EMILY JORDAN: Well, I think it goes back to that class that I took last semester. I think that the media world obviously is a huge part of today’s society and how we function and everything, how we get our information, and spread information, and stuff like that. I think it’s a super unique job. Originally, I wanted to do social media or marketing for a team of some sort. That was my original thought.

But I think I was passionate about it too, and broadcasting I enjoy and everything, but I think that where my– I want to get like a lot of fulfillment out of what I do, so I think that helping athletes in some way, making sure they stay involved in sports and, like I said, fixing the issues that are in the systems right now, I think those are really important so we can see the same participation levels throughout time and everything.

And I feel like I’ll get the most fulfillment out of doing something like that versus doing a sports media type job, I would say, just because that I know I’d be helping more people in that way. Not that sports media, obviously, is any– isn’t bad or anything, but I just think I would get more fulfillment out of helping athletes and stuff like that.

VINCE LARA: Sure. Have you had a chance at all to spend any time with Josh Whitman or kind of shadow him?

EMILY JORDAN: No, but I’m going to be doing my internship as part of– I’m not sure if you know, but the RST internship we have to do as part of our degree work requirement– this summer, I will be doing it under the athletic director and the media productions person Laura as I mentioned before. I’ll be working under them this summer at DACC as well. So that’ll be, I think, a really good interesting time for me and kind of allow me to see what it’s like being an AD, so I’m really looking forward to that as well.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, that’s terrific. And I think to wrap up I’d like to just ask, what would you tell other students who may be in a similar situation that you were at the end of your associate’s degree about RST, and how would you recommend the program to them?

EMILY JORDAN: I would say, when I was getting ready to transfer and I was looking at the schools I was looking at, the U of I seems massive. I mean, that was my initial thought, and what I told my parents and everything, but there’s 50,000 to 60,000 kids that come here, and it just seems so big and everything.

But when I actually came here and visited campus and stuff and saw that it’s like you know broken down into colleges and then your major and everything, I think that it helped it be more appealing to me, and also made me feel more at ease and comfortable with coming here, especially since it is so big. But in all honesty, I still feel like I’m kind of going to a community college. I’m not traveling across campus for classes or sitting in super big classes with 100 to 200 kids or anything like that. I really feel comfortable here knowing that I’m in the right major, and then with RST, I think that you’re going to get a lot of experiences out of being in that major.

It’s not necessarily a lot of book work. Obviously, there’s things you take from text and apply it to real life, but I think it’s more real life scenarios that you learn hands-on and in the classroom that can help you further on in your career. So I think that’s why it was so eye-opening for me and really attractive to me to come to RST because I felt that I would get the most out of majoring in this major. So it just felt like that. It felt comfortable, it felt right, and it just, like I said, would be an awesome experience for anyone, I think, who’s interested in this kind of work.

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