Laura Mattie joined the College of Applied Health Sciences in 2015. She leads the Development in Neurogenetic Disabilities Lab, or “DND” Lab.
Photo by caption
How would you describe your primary research interests?
My primary research interest is learning how young children with neurodevelopmental disabilities develop early social and communication skills to inform parent-implemented early language interventions.
Why did you decide to apply to work at Illinois?
I applied to Illinois because it was one of the only job postings that targeted expertise in children with disabilities and family well-being, which signified that my work was already valued.
What are you working on right now?
I have 4 main projects right now:
The Power of the Point Project focuses on the predictors of early language development in toddlers with Down syndrome and fragile X syndrome.
ASD Screening Tools in Down Syndrome is a large-scale survey of caregivers of individuals 6-18 years old that aims to determine how to best use autism screening tools for this population.
The Speech Accessibility Project aims to make voice recognition technology useful for individuals who may have diverse speech patterns and disabilities, including people with Down syndrome.
A Foundational Study of Adaptive Behaviors in Individuals with Down Syndrome is a survey of caregivers to learn about the practical, conceptual, and social skills used in everyday life by their children with Down syndrome who are between birth to 22 years old.
What’s a fun fact you’d like to share about yourself?
I am a twin mom to 15-month-old girls, so much of my free time is chasing after them! When I do have some down time, I enjoy rewatching TV shows like “The Office” and “Parks & Recreation,” reading, and snuggling with our dogs.
Miki Sato joined the College of Applied Health Sciences in 2020, after six years at James Madison University.
Miki Sato, assistant professor in Recreation, Sport and Tourism (Photo provided)
How would you describe your primary research interests?
My primary line of research focuses on exploring how and why engagement in sport-related consumption activities, such as sport participation and sport spectatorship, can contribute to improved health, health-related behaviors, and overall well-being.
I have conducted research in various sport settings, including participatory sport events (e.g., running events, walking events), fitness clubs, spectator sport events, and the Olympic Games.
What are you working on right now?
I am involved in research projects that examine the health benefits of sport participation and park and recreational facility availability within communities. Additionally, we are working on projects that explore the distinct roles of various sport participation locations, such as parks, fitness clubs, and community recreation centers, in promoting sport participation behaviors and enhancing well-being.
Regarding sport spectatorship, we are conducting projects that examine how engagement in professional sporting events, both through behavioral live spectating and psychological identification with professional sport teams, is associated with consumer well-being. We recently published a paper that provides evidence supporting sport spectatorship as a form of experiential consumption that fosters happiness among sport fans.
What’s a fun fact you’d like to share about yourself? What do you like to do in your free time?
I am a big fan of track and field and long-distance running. One of my childhood idols was Carl Lewis, who won nine Olympic gold medals in sprint and long-jump events. I am also a recreational runner.
Since moving to Illinois, I have participated in the Illinois Marathon’s 10k race twice. The event was incredibly well-organized, and I recommend it to runners of all levels, from novices to experienced athletes!
Jenna Fesemyer’s approach to her academic pursuit matches her attitude on the track (Photo provided)
Jenna Fesemyer’s enduring love of wheelchair racing boils down to two factors. First, like other skill-heavy sports, there always a way to fine-tune her mechanics and improve her craft, she said.
The second reason is simpler: “I love the feeling of going fast,” Fesemyer said.
While the Ohio-born Paralympian keeps up her competitive pace, she’s also racing toward her next professional challenge: obtaining a Ph.D. in recreation, sport and tourism from the University of Illinois.
In many ways, Fesemyer’s approach to her academic pursuit matches her attitude on the track. She’s organized, consistent and utterly committed to both disciplines as avenues for personal growth.
“When I first met her, I worried how she’d manage both being this high-level athlete and doing a Ph.D., which is so time-consuming,” said her advisor, RST Associate Professor Toni Liechty. “But it seems like she takes the same dedication she applies to her training and her sport and she brings that to the Ph.D. She doesn’t do anything halfway.”
Fesemyer graduated from Illinois’ kinesiology program in 2019 and stayed to earn her master’s degree in education policy, organization and leadership. Initially, she wanted to be a physical therapist, but now has her sights set on becoming a faculty member at a university.
Now she’s returned to her “intellectual home” in the College of Applied Health Sciences, entering her second year of the RST Ph.D. program. Fesemyer chose RST to focus her research on the psychosocial benefits of sport interventions for youth with physical disabilities and building more inclusive recreation communities.
“Our faculty is really strong—I’ve enjoyed every single class that I’ve taken so far,” Fesemyer said. “When you have faculty that believes in the power of being in the classroom and passing on their legacy of their knowledge to their students, it makes a big difference.
“I’m excited to have my own classroom one day.”
Track star without a track
Tracing back, Fesemyer’s future in athletics seemed a far cry from the opportunities she had in hometown Ravenna, Ohio, about an hour south of Cleveland.
Due to a rare congenital condition known as proximal femoral focal deficiency, she was born without a hip socket. Her high school had an old cinder track, unsuitable for wheelchair sport.
“It’s interesting how I ended up being a track athlete not having access to a track,” she said.
So, Fesemyer and her family forged a path of her own; growing up with her two triplet siblings, competed in basketball, volleyball and golf with the use of a prosthetic leg and even threw discus and seated shotput for school track teams.
Fesemyer attributes a lot of her competitive nature to growing up as a triplet. But sibling rivalry never stood in the way of their bonds: The trio decided to stay in the same classrooms whenever possible.
“We were always competitive, but we always acknowledged we were teammates and advocates for each other,” Fesemyer said. “Watching them take on this role of constant allies for me as a sibling with a disability, we really have grown a lot together through those different facets. I attribute a lot of who I am to those experiences.”
In 2013, Ohio’s high school athletics association added wheelchair events to the state track meet. With some persuasion from her parents, Fesemyer began making the half-hour trip east to Newton Falls High School to practice wheelchair racing, and “quickly fell in love” with it.
As her skills grew and college drew nearer, she began investigating schools that would help to take her talent to the next level.
She reached out to University of Illinois wheelchair track coach Adam Bleakney and scheduled a visit in fall 2014. Immediately, the fit felt right—the proximity, the academic programs and the history of the school’s accessibility and wheelchair athletics.
Fesemyer’s application to Illinois was the only one she submitted.
“I put all my eggs in one basket. I’m very happy it worked out,” she said.
Early Illinois track practices were a wake-up call, Fesemyer said. She was back at the “bottom of the totem pole” athletically, and training became an all-day endeavor, maintained by constant hydration, good sleep and good fuel.
What helped her adjustment period was the understated style of Bleakney. His reserved nature and methodical approach to practice and competition appeals to Fesemyer and many of his student-athletes.
Fesemyer’s “sunny disposition” is near-constant, Bleakney said, to the point where her peers draw on her positivity to keep spirits high in tough practices.
“(Jenna’s) always had an attitude of comprehensively applying her work ethic, self-discipline and drive to all areas of her life—academics, athletics and work,” Bleakney said. “She shares my philosophy as a coach: We’re training versatile student-athletes who are successful not only in athletics and academics, but in skills that will make them more employable.”
That approach has carried Fesemyer’s improvement in the sport, culminating in an appearance the 2020 Tokyo Summer Paralympics, where she placed seventh in the women’s 5,000-meter T54 race and shattered her personal best time.
Three marathons remain for Fesemyer this year: Berlin on Sept. 24, Chicago on Oct. 8, and the New York City race on Nov. 5, which doubles as a Paralympic trial for wheelchair racers to punch their ticket to the 2024 Paris Games.
“We’ve had a really good block of training over these past couple of weeks and so I’m feeling really good—getting stronger, but also growing in that confidence piece as well,” Fesemyer said.
Circular moment
Fesemyer’s athletic and academic journeys crossed for in a moment this January when she hosted a wheelchair track clinic in Columbus, Ohio, for middle school and high school athletes.
While helping adolescent wheelchair athletes with their skills, the clinic served a broader purpose: It set the stage for her pilot academic study, where she’ll revisit Columbus for a follow-up next January.
“It really was a full-circle moment for me, starting as an athlete in Ohio in wheelchair racing to be able to go back and serve that same community through this wheelchair track clinic,” Fesemyer said.
So far, her academic endeavors number from collaborating on a paper about inclusivity in recreation centers to working in Department of Kinesiology and Community Health Associate Professor Laura Rice’s lab on a fall prevention project for people with disabilities.
Fesemyer’s experience in kinesiology has made it easier for her to collaborate across the college, her advisor said.
“I think she’s a great representation of AHS as a whole, and why our college goes together,” Liechty said. “Because she understands why lifestyle fitness is important, why it’s important for people with disabilities and how organizations or recreation or fitness centers can facilitate that happening in a way that promotes health.
“She’s kind of the epitome of everything we do in this college,” Liechty said.
Not all of Fesemyer’s contributions take place on the track, classroom or the lab. She recently served as a tour guide for the RST program during summer “Illini Days.”
Prospective students were particularly interested in her Paralympic resume—despite her best efforts.
“I don’t know why, but I always try to hide that part of my identity when I give tours because the identity of a student, for me, comes first,” she said. “That’s really important for me to showcase that, because my identity coming to Illinois was always to be a student first and celebrate the opportunity of being an athlete on the side.
“But it’s sports, and students get excited about sports which is great too.”
As year two of her four-year Ph.D. program begins, Fesemyer is continuously grateful to return to full classrooms and in-person experiences with her graduate cohort.
“Having that experience with my peers, coming in at the same time and progressing through the program at the same time has been a remarkable experience,” she said. “I believe in working in community and working with others.”
The project aim is to remove barriers to participation in recreational, exercise, and adaptive sports often encountered by persons with disabilities
Ian Rice
Ian Rice, a KCH teaching associate professor, received a grant of approximately $4.5 million from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research for his called “Power of Play.”
Rice is the principal investigator and project director for Power of Play, which serves to expand access to and promote use of regular, consistent physical activity, sports participation and active recreation for persons with disabilities through research and development of novel technologies, advanced training and educational techniques, and dissemination strategies.
The mechanism is a Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers (RERC) Program, Rice said. The long-term strategy of this project is to remove barriers to participation in recreational, exercise, and adaptive sports often encountered by persons with disabilities, with particular emphasis on equity of access among underserved communities.
Objectives target the domains of community living and participation and health and function of persons with disabilities through research and development of novel recreational technologies, health related products and equipment, and advanced training and educational techniques.
According to Rice, Power of Play will specifically address inclusivity, incorporating proven and emerging technologies and strategies, and making adaptive sports and recreation equipment safe, available, affordable, and reliable to children, adolescents and underserved people.
Rice said the project will involve multidisciplinary collaborations among researchers at University of Pittsburgh and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as well as health system and community partners serving people with disabilities.
Among the research projects Rice and the group plan to accomplish are examining the impact and usability of an air-powered wheelchair (called PneuChair) capable of navigating outdoor environments previously hazardous and/or inaccessible to power mobility users. They also plan to develop and examine safe limits of use for off-road wheelchairs and hand cycles through using safe clinical limits of use tools (CLOUT) methodology and examine functionality usability and enjoyment of an inclusive, home-based smart connected arm cycle for improved overall function and quality of life in wheelchair users.
The AHS Class of 2027 gathered in Huff Hall for the first time.
Welcome Week at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign capped off with individual college celebrations scattered across campus.
The College of Applied Health Sciences brought first-year students to Huff Hall for a spirited welcome and resource-sharing session. A few members of the newest freshman class offered their thoughts on why they chose AHS and what they’re looking forward to in the new academic year.
Mustafa Siddique, hailing from Naperville, Ill., had a lot of fun with the “festive” atmosphere of University of Illinois Welcome Week, where it felt like everyone was there to lend a helping hand.
Mustafa is studying interdisciplinary health sciences on the pre-medical school track. The College of Applied Health Sciences won out in his school choice for its real-world usefulness.
“It kind of gives you a perspective into the specific field that you’re going into instead of just science as a whole. So I thought AHS was a good choice,” he said.
Arely Soto, from Aurora, Ill., was exposed to a wide range of therapists through her mother, who’s a social worker. After speaking with a speech pathologist and learning about her career, Arely decided speech and hearing science was the path she wanted to follow.
Experiencing Illinois Sights and Sounds, the capstone Welcome Week event that teaches new students Illinois traditions, was an early highlight for her. Especially taking a huge picture with her class packed into a “Block I” on the Memorial Stadium field.
“I’m really excited for RSOs to start, to get involved and see what the schools offer in general.”
Dallas Miles, from South Holland in the Chicago suburbs, said his family always encouraged him to do something in the health field.
“I’m glad I’m here now,” said Miles, who’ll be studying interdisciplinary health sciences in his freshman year. After Welcome Week, he’s got plenty of Illini merchandise—shirts and stickers galore.
Dallas’ vision for his career vision orbits around health technology, “making stuff like hearing aids and heart monitors” to help patients day-to-day, he said.
Allison Pines is from Highlands Ranch, Colo., but she’s a “religious Cubs fan” through and through. In fact, she declared for recreation sport and tourism with a concentration in sports management in the hopes of becoming an analyst for a Major League Baseball team.
“I was really impressed with the prestige that the concentration in sports management held, it’s something that I’ve been dreaming of for a very long time. The fact that I found a prestigious program at a school I’m passionate about drove me to Applied Health Sciences,” she said.
“Sports management is my declared major but I may get involved in kinesiology or other opportunities this college has to offer.”
Illinois freshmen Sam Rausenberger from Carterville and Mihir Patel from Vandalia share an interest in the human body and how it works. Majoring in kinesiology at AHS seemed an easy choice for both of them.
“I like sports and fitness and I like helping people,” Patel said. “Physical therapy spoke to me, basically, I feel like that’s something I can do.”
Both freshmen are interested in the physical therapy path, specifically in the world of athletics.
“I took a health class my freshman year which was required and I loved learning about the skeleton and muscles and all the movement,” Rausenberger said. “I didn’t take another class like that until anatomy in my senior year, we did the bones and learned in-depth how muscles move and how they work. I was super interested in that and knew this is what I want to do.”
After putting their names in for student organizations at the AHS Student Welcome—and in Patel’s case, catching a prized Illini shirt thrown into the crowd at Sights and Sounds—both are excited to explore the U. of I.’s opportunities.
“I’m definitely looking forward to getting to know more people and knowing the campus, what I’ve seen so far. It’s a beautiful campus. I just don’t know my way around yet,” Rausenberger said.
John O’Neill is credited with playing “a major role in the transformation of Speech and Hearing Science” at Illinois (Illinois archives)
The Department of Speech and Hearing Science’s history of cultivating a spirit of leadership through mentoring and service to the profession owes much to John J. O’Neill.
O’Neill interviewed to chair the Division of Speech and Hearing Science in the Department of Speech at the 1958 American Speech and Hearing Association convention in New York. Already known for his expertise in clinical psychology and rehabilitative audiology, O’Neill left Ohio State University for Illinois in 1959, where, as the new division chair, he instilled the expectation that faculty and students would match his dedication to service. Upon his hiring, O’Neill was charged with further integrating the speech and audiology areas, developing the graduate program, obtaining grants and centralizing the department under one roof. He tackled all this as he widened the department’s contributions to speech and hearing programs across Illinois and beyond. Department faculty, graduate students and undergraduates contributed to training, clinical work and the efforts of professional associations at the local, state and national levels.
In his obituary, published by the News-Gazette on July 5, 2009, O’Neill was described as having “played a major role in the transformation of Speech and Hearing Science at the University of Illinois to its current status as the nationally ranked Department of Speech and Hearing Science and served as the first head of the department from 1973 to 1979.” O’Neill published more than 80 journal articles and technical reports and was the author or co-author of four textbooks. Although he retired in 1991, O’Neill remained active in SHS, serving for years as the department’s format checker for theses and dissertations.
In a 2010 tribute at the Annual John J. O’Neill Lecture, Tanya Gallagher, a former dean of the College of Applied Health Sciences and an alumna of SHS, called O’Neill a “highly respected researcher whose landmark work advanced the field of aural rehabilitation, a skilled administrator who built one of the leading speech and hearing science programs in the nation and helped our national association take its place as one of the major scientific and professional organizations.”
Gallagher—who received her master’s degree and Ph.D. from SHS, said, “Dr. O’Neill had attracted some of the brightest thinkers of our field to this program, and the intellectual vitality within the small white house that housed the program then [the old Lorado Taft house] was palpable and energizing. It was the place to be, where it was happening, and we knew it even then.”
Another SHS alumna, Judith LeDuc, had a similar feeling about O’Neill.
“I first met John O’Neill when I came to interview him about the Speech Science Program at Illinois. I walked into his office, and there he was, with his feet resting on his desk. I thought, ‘My kind of guy!’”
LeDuc, who got her master’s degree in 1971, went on to work as a speech-language pathologist at the University of Illinois Medical Center and developed both outpatient and inpatient hospital-based pediatric programs, as well as a private practice.
“I was interested in child language, and he assured me that the faculty at Illinois brought a wealth of knowledge and research to the program,” said LeDuc, who has also been an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, Rush Medical Center and DePaul University. “He was passionate about the field, dedicated to serving, and somehow was always able to hold the department together, as faculty and students paraded through.”
John Deck, who got his master’s and Ph.D. from Illinois, credited O’Neill for his guidance and direction and said O’Neill encouraged him to take a job as a speech pathologist at the Danville VA Medical Center in Illinois. Through the years at Danville, more than 500 graduate and doctoral students from the division (and later, department) of SHS gained clinical experience. O’Neill was Deck’s Ph.D. advisor, and, as Deck said, “We would discuss important legislation affecting funding for the profession. Conversations Dr. O’Neill and I had about legislation struck close to home … During our discussions, I discovered that no one among the Big Ten schools in speech and hearing did more to help create traineeships for graduate students than John J. O’Neill. So many of us have benefited from his efforts and his legacy.”
O’Neill and Deck, who later worked at Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis, worked to secure traineeships with stipends for speech-language-pathology and audiology students.
O’Neill was also a pioneer in forming the Illinois Speech and Hearing Association in February 1960, and he was a co-founder in 1966 and past president of the Academy of Rehabilitative Audiology, which helped establish the department’s national reputation in that area. In 1969, he served as president of ASHA. He was a charter member of the Council on Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders, a member of numerous ASHA committees and boards, and ultimately a recipient of ASHA’s Honors of the Association in 1979.
O’Neill’s activity with these associations transferred to his students and colleagues as well. LeDuc, for example, said O’Neill “encouraged us to attend Illinois Speech and Hearing Association meetings, as well as ASHA annual meetings. It was soon after graduate school that I began to serve on ASHA’s legislative council, and ISHA’s program and local arrangements committees. My work on ASHA’s boards and councils continued for more than 40 years. For most of my career, I served the underserved. It was that O’Neill voice in my head.”
The SHS faculty today continue in that spirit. Faculty serve on committees within ASHA, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation and the Acoustical Society of America. They are officers in the Eastern Illinois Speech-Language Hearing Association and the Illini Chapter of the Illinois Association of the Deaf, and they serve on Advisory Boards of the Illinois State Board of Education, the American Tinnitus Association and the National Down Syndrome Society, among others.
“As we celebrate the department’s history and the contributions of its pioneering faculty, we also affirm our commitment to giving back to the community, serving the professions, and honoring the legacy of those who came before us,” said Department Head Pamela Hadley.
Longtime healthcare executive takes lead role in AHS
Lynne Barnes
Lynne Barnes, past president of Carle Foundation Hospital, has been hired as director of the Master of Health Administration degree program in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois.
Barnes’ appointment officially begins Aug. 1, succeeding interim director Laura Rice.
Raised in Catlin, Ill., Barnes was hired by Carle Health in January 1977 straight out of college as the system’s first occupational therapist. She directed several departments and worked numerous administrative roles before finishing her Carle career as president of the Urbana hospital.
“Throughout her career, Lynne has served the community and distinguished herself as a leader in healthcare innovation,” said Kim Graber, head of the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health. “Her background in clinical operations and occupational therapy, along with her distinguished experience as president of Carle Foundation Hospital, will provide graduate students in health administration with unrivaled leadership.
“Lynne has boundless energy and will help take our program to the next level.”
Barnes will continue to teach as a part-time clinical professor, a role she’s held at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2007. A frequent community volunteer, Barnes is board chair of the Stephens Family YMCA and Experience Champaign-Urbana, and previously served as a member of the United Way of Champaign County and Urbana City Council.
Barnes oversaw the growth of Carle Foundation Hospital’s therapy programs and clinical operations, leading the flagship location in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic before retiring in Feb. 2022.
Barnes earned her bachelor’s degree in the emerging field of Occupational Therapy from the University of Illinois-Chicago in 1976, later obtaining her master’s degree in public administration from Illinois in 1988.
The MHA program was established in 2017 and accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health in 2019.
The opportunity to educate the next generation of healthcare leaders compelled Barnes to take the MHA directorship. She will work to develop the department’s new online MHA program and strengthen its position in the graduate landscape.
“The support has been terrific,” Barnes said. “I have no doubt we will be able to achieve these goals. I enjoy teamwork and I have already experienced that it is ‘all hands on deck’ to continue to improve and optimize our educational opportunities for our students.
“After decades of working in healthcare, it’s really exciting for me to have the opportunity to impact the careers of future healthcare leaders.”
Chez again hosts two‑week Warrior‑Scholar Project boot camp for veterans
Warrior-Scholar Project students listen to a lecture about the U.S. Constitution from Assistant Professor of Political Science Alicia Uribe-McGuire. (Photo by Ethan Simmons)
For Chez Veterans Center director of operations Andy Bender, the function of the Warrior-Scholar Project is straightforward: Offer military Veterans a two-week-long academic “boot camp” to reacquaint themselves with the classroom environment before heading to a college or university.
“One of the hardest things a service member is going to do is leave the service,” Bender said. “We really enjoy having the Warrior-Scholar Project here because it reflects what we want to be a part of: Making that transition.”
In June 2023, the Chez Veterans Center, the hub for military populations at the University of Illinois, hosted a cohort of higher-ed-bound Veterans for the second year in a row.
The Warrior-Scholar Project partners with American colleges and universities to host brief, intensive, no-cost college prep experiences for both enlisted Veterans and service members transitioning into civilian life.
The Chez Center brought in Warrior-Scholars for the first time in 2022, with a week of STEM-centered coursework taught by Illinois faculty. This year’s edition doubled the session’s length, adding a Humanities track of classes for participants.
The cohort of 15 students and six fellows all hailed from outside of Illinois. Most hadn’t ever visited the Champaign-Urbana campus; though they may not choose Illinois for school, the experience still has a hand in their higher ed journeys.
The two-week schedule was filled with visits to various campus landmarks and labs, including the AHS McKechnie Family LIFE Home, and a robotics and automation demonstration at the Agricultural and Bioengineering research farm. Humanities seminars focused on the United States’ founding principles and documents that the Veterans were sworn to defend.
Assistant Professor of Political Science Alicia Uribe-McGuire led one of their first seminars, teaching an engaged class on the origin and execution of the U.S. Constitution.
“I’ve always thought that the more a student wants it, the better a student they are. And I think they want it,” Uribe-McGuire said shortly after her seminar discussion. “I’ve had Veterans in my classes before, and they’re some of the best students.”
One frequent class contributor was Cody Lepp, an eight-year Navy SEAL who decided to return to school while still serving in the military. After three years taking online classes through National University in San Diego, Lepp is heading into his senior year and he wanted to use WSP to see how he measured up in the in-person classroom environment.
“I came in with an open mindset, hopefully I can learn some new things,” Lepp said. “What I hope to get out of it is practice applying my skills, seeing where I stand against the majority of my fellows.”
Cody Lepp stands in a classroom of the Chez Center after a lecture (Photo by Ethan Simmons)
Jonathan Banasihan had spent seven years as a technician for the U.S. Navy when a new challenge—going back to school—entered his purview. The Warrior-Scholar Project seemed a great opportunity to refamiliarize himself with the flow of a classroom.
Banasihan, the son of Filipino immigrants, never thought college was an option. With a bachelor’s degree from American University and now planning to go to law school at George Washington University, Banasihan feels he left the academic boot camp with far more than advertised.
“I didn’t think that I could do the things that I did in college until I came here,” said Banasihan, now a facilitator for the Warrior-Scholar Project. “The confidence that WSP gave me to not just be uncomfortable, but to stretch myself in ways that I never really expected or wanted to was huge.”
Banasihan is ushering through student Veterans who were in his same position.
“UIUC has been an incredible, incredible partner. I can’t say anything but good things about this place,” Banasihan said.
Among Veterans’ challenges reintegrating after their service, higher education can be a “completely different animal,” Bender said.
“If you’re like some service members—if you’ve spent four, five, six years—how long has it been since you were in a classroom? You might have some of those creeping doubts come in. Can I make it? Am I going to fit in? Is this going to be successful?” he said.
“(WSP) is providing the confidence to these service members that we can do it. That there is a future beyond my service time. That there is a way to make it.”
The Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Clinic at the University of Illinois, located at 2001 S. Oak St. in Champaign, was recently certified to provide services for patients covered by Medicare. To expand on this exciting change, The College of Applied Health Sciences spoke with Rabel Lohana, the clinic’s practice manager. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
A clinician speaks with a patient at the Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Clinic, which is now Medicare-certified. (Photo by Brian Stauffer)
Q: Could you explain in your own words what this Medicare certification means for the clinic?
The Medicare status change aligns perfectly with our clinic’s mission to provide accessible and high-quality health care to our community. By becoming Medicare certified, we can now serve a broader segment of our population, particularly older adults and those with disabilities, and ensuring that everyone has access to the medical care they need. So that’s the most important thing for us, that we are able to complete and fully accomplish the mission that the clinic runs with.
Q: Does this change mean that more people in the community can access the clinic’s services than before?
Absolutely. We can extend our services to Medicare beneficiaries who may have previously faced barriers to accessing care at our clinic because we were not Medicare certified. So this means a significant portion of our community, especially older adults, will now have more options for their health care needs.
Q: Has this change already taken effect, or is there still some time until these people can access the clinic?
It takes effect immediately. We are accepting Medicare patients and provide them with full range of services our clinic offers. We are good to go.
Q: For those who have never even heard of the clinic or been around it before, could you describe how the clinic functions and the people that are running it?
It’s a teaching facility, so we have students in our clinic. They are supervised by our ASHA-certified clinicians. We have staff members, me as practice manager, and a clinic business specialist who takes care of our billing, our pre-authorization for insurances. We have five SLPs and one audiologist right now. It’s a teaching facility. We provide a great experience for our students, a learning experience. But they are always supervised by our clinicians.
Q: For the students, how do you think this Medicare certification will affect their learning? What kind of opportunities do you think it’s going to afford them?
This change significantly enhances student opportunities to apply their learning in real-world scenarios. With a broader patient base, students will have the chance to encounter a wide variety of medical conditions and treatment scenarios. This will allow specifically seeing the older population that they were not able to see when we were not Medicare certified, which is invaluable for their education and professional development.
Q: Are you anticipating an increase in how many people are coming by to schedule appointments because of this change?
Yes, we do anticipate an increase in utilization of our services. We have a few patients on the waitlist in audiology and a few clients in speech-language pathology services, and we have scheduled them. And we do expect to see the increased flow of that population at our clinic.
Q: For people that are interested in using these services, how can they find out whether they’re eligible to use the clinic, whether they’re on Medicare or not?
We will be updating probably our website with that information. They can go to our clinic website, shsclinic.shs.illinois.edu, and look at the insurances we accept. And Medicare is one of those.
Along with that, we are trying to do some of our outreach events, where we would be educating our community by letting them know that this is what now we are accepting. Also, we do appreciate people calling us and knowing more about the services and the insurance benefits that they can get from a clinic. We are open to accept a variety of insurances. Please call us and find out at (217) 333-2205.
Elaine Pagel Paden co-wrote the first book on phonological approaches to treatment for highly unintelligible children (Photo provided)
From Johnson to Fairbanks, Yes, let us all shout. We now can forget What semantic’s about…
For mere words and bandiage, We’ll now take advantage Of dials and meters And stuff.
ASHA’s First Journal
This ode, written by D.W. Morris and quoted in Elaine Pagel Paden’s book “History of the American Speech and Hearing Association, 1925-1958,” was an introduction to Grant Fairbanks when he was selected as the third editor of the Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders in 1948 (succeeding Wendell Johnson). It was the field’s first professional/scientific journal and the only journal of the American Speech and Hearing Association. Before Fairbanks’ tenure as editor, the journal had resembled, in part, a newsletter or trade journal for the nascent association and field more than the top-quality scientific journal he envisioned. All that was about to change.
Fairbanks was named professor of speech and director of a new Speech Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois in 1948. The laboratory gained renown for technical research, and students earned the first doctoral degrees in speech and hearing science bestowed by Illinois, going on to significantly influence the field.
Whereas previous editors of JSHD were clinicians, Fairbanks, an expert in experimental phonetics, was the first research scientist to serve as editor. As such, he brought to the journal an ironclad devotion to science and determination to make it a rigorous scholarly publication and solidify ASHA as a credible organization. In her book, Paden noted the “razor-sharp intellect of Grant Fairbanks slashing directly at the core of the issue” during discussions at association business meetings. Fairbanks and his colleague Raymond Carhart were described as “clear-headed organizers” for the association’s new membership plan in 1950 and “forceful representatives of the research scientists and the audiologists, respectively.” This matched Fairbanks’ drive at Illinois as a teacher, researcher and mentor. The national impact and profile of the newly minted Department of Speech increased considerably after World War II, thanks in large part to his work and that of colleagues such as Paden.
As editor of JSHD, Fairbanks immediately shared the journal’s editorial work with a staff of five associate editors. Their work became truly editorial, aiding authors in crafting articles and carefully screening submissions to maintain a standard of excellence. Paden joined the editorial staff in 1949. The journal found its scholarly voice, based on what SHS Associate Professor Emerita Cynthia Johnson Parsons called, “a backbone of science.” With its headquarters at the University of Illinois, the university provided staff financial and logistical support for the journal, expanding the Department of Speech’s influence in speech and hearing science.
Fairbanks and Paden
Fairbanks brought prior experience as a consulting or associate editor for the Quarterly Journal of Speech and other journals to his editorial position at JSHD, which he held from 1949-54. In 1955, he received ASHA’s Honors of the Association for his exemplary service and high-quality research, a testament to his crucial role in the association and the profession. Among his many accomplishments, Fairbanks was famous for his widely used textbook, “Voice and Articulation Drillbook, Second Edition,” published in 1960 by Harper and Row. Fairbanks left Illinois in 1962 to take a director of research position in California. Parsons summarized Fairbanks’ leadership at the journal and Illinois as “a powerful force as we grew our field from scratch.”
Paden served on the editorial staff of JSHD for Fairbanks’ entire tenure as editor. She joined the Illinois faculty in 1952, working in phonetics and phonology and serving as acting head of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science from 1979-81. At Illinois, Paden was a forerunner in child phonology and its extension to intervention for speech disorders, helping preschoolers acquire speech sounds. Her work influenced clinical education in communication sciences and disorders at many of the top university programs throughout the country. Paden also helped establish the annual Midwestern Child Phonology Conference (now the International Child Phonology Conference) and interviewed pioneers in the field for ASHA’s archives and her 1970 book.
SHS Professor Emeritus Ehud Yairi said, “Paden pioneered research in normal child phonological development as well as in clinical methods applied to child phonological disorders.” He noted that she developed the earliest course dedicated to the topic. “Her work greatly altered the traditional concept of ‘articulation disorders,” he said.
Later, in collaboration with her former student, Professor Barbara Williams Hodson, Paden wrote the first book on phonological approaches to treatment for highly unintelligible children. Hodson and Paden’s “Targeting Intelligible Speech: A Phonological Approach to Remediation, Second Edition (1991)” has had a far-reaching and enduring impact. In the preface, the authors thanked Grant Fairbanks, writing that his “teaching and research have had a lasting influence on our thinking.”
In the early 1980s, Parsons was on faculty with Paden. “I used this book all the years I taught SHS 430 Development and Disorders of Phonology and Articulation, from Elaine’s retirement until my last semester of teaching before my own retirement, in the spring of 2021,” Parsons said.
Yairi first met Paden at the 1976 ASHA convention in Houston, when she interviewed him for his faculty position at Illinois.
“As I gradually built and expanded my research work into the Illinois International Stuttering Research Program, Elaine joined us and became an important member of the team,” Yairi said, adding that they co-authored several scientific articles and book chapters on the relation between stuttering and phonological disorders.
In 1993, Paden received both the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology at the University of Iowa and Honors of the Association from ASHA, the highest award in the field.
From One Journal to Many
At its 1957 convention, ASHA’s Executive Council decided to split the content of JSHD into two journals, retaining JSHD and founding a new journal, the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research. JSHR was devoted to basic research in speech and hearing processes, while JSHD focused on clinical research. The first issue of JSHR was published in March 1958. It included “Effects of Delayed Auditory Feedback Upon Articulation,” written by Fairbanks and Newman Guttman, a researcher at Bell Laboratories who got his Ph.D. at Illinois. Subsequent issues of JSHR were filled with articles written by and with scholarly attribution to department graduates.
The two journals were merged into one in 1991 under the JSHR title, with the name changed to The Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research in 1997. There are six significant journals in speech and hearing sciences now—including The American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and the American Journal of Audiology—no doubt a reflection of Fairbanks’ and Paden’s impact on ASHA’s first journal, with their firm commitment to straightforward facts, accuracy and scientific detail.
“I was a graduate student when the decision was made to consolidate JSHD and JSHR and create two new publications to disseminate work with direct clinical relevance,” said Professor and SHS Department Head Pamela Hadley. “These journals showcased cutting-edge clinical research studies and experimented with exciting and highly readable new formats such as tutorials and expert opinions. AJSLP and AJA remain critically important today for introducing best practices to graduate students and helping practicing clinicians stay up to date.”
In her book, Paden wrote “one of the chief reasons for the existence of a professional or learned society is the sharing of knowledge in the field among its members.” With the launch of its first journal, “not only was the status of the association notably increased, but its membership rolls began an accelerated upward surge which must be attributed, at least in part, to the reputation of the journal.“
In its 50th anniversary year, the Department of Speech and Hearing Science is proud to claim a seminal role in the establishment of the journals in the field, through the hard work and dedication of its pioneering faculty, Professors Fairbanks and Paden.
