Category: Speech and Hearing Science

Chez Center hosts program to ready veterans for higher ed

Aug. 1, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

Apsan Bishwokarma looks over notes in a Warrior-Scholar Project class, hosted at the Chez Veterans Center. (Photo by Ethan Simmons)

While Adam Sherman Jr. sat for the two-hour bus ride from Chicago O’Hare Airport to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus, a pit was forming in his stomach. 

He’d spent six years in the Navy, stationed in Japan and California for three years apiece, sometimes working out at sea for six or 12 months at a time. But a few preparatory problem sets for the Warrior-Scholar Project’s academic boot camp had him stumped. 

“I didn’t know if I’d be able to knock off the dust and the rust to get going in this program,” said Sherman, who grew up in New Jersey. 

After spending four days in the camp absorbing astronomy and physics lectures from University of Illinois faculty at the Chez Veterans Center, Sherman’s first taste of higher education was going “really smooth,” he said. 

“They broke it down in a way that’s really digestible, and they’re building it up in a way where it’s really fast-paced, but it’s comprehensible,” he said.  

This July, 15 student Veterans took classes and teamed up on projects in the Chez Veterans Center, the University of Illinois’ one-stop shop for military-connected students. The center has hosted the nonprofit Warrior-Scholar Project for the three consecutive years. 

The Warrior-Scholar Project, or WSP for short, takes place in college campuses across the country as an eight-day higher ed experience for military Veterans of all ages. 

The WSP and Chez Veterans Center’s missions are aligned—both are dedicated to easing the transition of military-connected students back into education and civilian life. 

“The premise of WSP is really about showing them they can do it, giving them the confidence they can leave the military and go to a place like the University of Illinois,” said Chez Veterans Center Director of Operations Andy Bender. 

“I think what’s great for us in particular is (WSP) follows our mission. We’re all about the successful transition from the military into higher education—this is a good steppingstone for it. But it also gets a lot of our campus partners who may not have connections to the military to come and meet these students.” 

WSP Education Programs Coordinator Rebecca Mills called Illinois’ Chez Veterans Center one of the program’s “top campus stakeholders,” for going “above and beyond” for student cohorts. A core component for both organizations: Showing Veterans that the talents they’ve built in the service are transferable to the classroom.

“It’s less the content—we know they’re capable, we know they have the experience. But how do they use the skills they developed in the military to be successful in higher ed?” Mills said. 

Warrior-Scholar Project student-veterans chat during a tour of Hourglass Medical in Illinois Research Park, alongside Chez Veterans Center staff.
A whopping 88 percent of Warrior-Scholar Project alumni have either obtained a college degree or are on track to complete one (Photo by Ethan Simmons)

Some students, such as Sherman, enter the Warrior-Scholar Project with no college credits. Others, such as Sergio Perez Jr., a 26-year-old Marine Corps veteran from Oklahoma, used WSP to re-familiarize himself with the pace of university life.  

When he left the service in October 2023, he “had one goal in mind: and that was to go back and finish my degree,” he said. 

“For me, WSP was a ‘two birds with one stone’ type of deal, because University of Illinois was actually one of the schools I’m thinking about applying to in the future,” Perez added. “When I saw they still had openings for this, I thought, ‘You know what? I can do a quick campus tour while still self improving.’ So this has given me a better understanding of how this campus functions.”

A whopping 88 percent of Warrior-Scholar Project alumni have either obtained a college degree or are on track to complete one, according to their internal statistics. This year, Illinois also hosted WSP’s annual alumni conference, where bootcamp graduates return to network and listen to industry professionals with military connections. 

A Veteran careers panel discussion included Mona Dexter, Comcast’s vice president of Military and Veteran Affairs; Michael Pett, Uber’s head of Military and Veteran Programs at Uber; Erica Jeffries Purdo, vice president of Strategy and Operations at Johnson & Johnson; and Tommy Jones, senior director of Military and Talent Programs at Walmart. 

During the campus visit, the student cohort got to tour Research Park businesses such as Caterpillar’s Innovation Center and Hourglass Medical, a wearable technology company. Before they left campus, Chez staff brought them to a celebratory visit to the Colonnades Club in Memorial Stadium, itself a tribute to U. of I. veterans who fought in World War I. 

“Illinois might be one of the best-kept secrets in higher ed; You walk into a building and learn about a Nobel prize winner who invented something you use every day,” Bender said. “We’ve had a couple people who’ve told us, ‘I wanna come here.’”

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
 

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SHS World Voice Day shows importance of interaction between voice and acoustic environment

April 25, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

This study demonstrates that singers also tend to adjust their vocal production when in different spaces

Faculty from the Dept. of Speech and Hearing Science were involved in the planning and execution of World Voice Day, a symposium designed to build awareness of the human voice.

Researchers from SHS—including assistant professors Keiko Ishikawa, Brian Monson and Pasquale Bottalico—as well as invited speakers discussed their interdisciplinary projects illuminating voice usage and health.

At the end of the two-hour-plus event, the consensus to achieve voice clarity was: The room matters.

One of the presentations was a collaboration of Bottalico, School of Music Associate Professor Yvonne Gonzales Redman and undergraduate student Natalia Łastowiecka, who worked on a study investigating the influence of room acoustics on singers’ voice production. Clarke University Assistant Professor of Music-Voice Joshua Glasner was also part of the presentation.

The researchers said that similar research on instrumentalists suggests that musical performers may be influenced to some extent by the acoustic environment, and this study demonstrates that singers also tend to adjust their vocal production when in different spaces. Bottalico said singers were recorded singing the same musical selection—Giuseppe Giordani’s “Caro mio ben”—consecutively in five different locations on campus: Smith Memorial Room, Smith Recital Hall, KCPA Great Hall, Colwell Playhouse and the Amphitheater. Voice parameters analyzed were vibrato rate, extent, and pitch inaccuracy. Vibrato extent showed significant changes to the different acoustic environments.

The researchers said to combat any voice problems, singers should train in a variety of spaces, and that future studies should investigate functional causes of aberrant vibrato rate, and investigate how to train singers to adapt to different acoustic environments.

Dr. Ishikawa presented with Diana Orbelo of the Mayo Clinic on the “Vocal health among singers.” Orbelo talked about the importance of gargling, calling it the “rock-star quick fix.” Orbelo said gargling—she recommended water, not beer, as some rock stars preferred—can quickly relax the voice. Ishikawa talked about The Lombard Effect, which is the involuntary tendency of speakers to increase their vocal effort when speaking in loud noise to enhance the audibility of their voice.

Ishikawa said that noisy environments are difficult for anyone to speak intelligibly but they are more difficult for people with voice disorders. Most of these people undergo voice therapy as a part of their treatment, where they learn to use vocal production techniques.

“We wanted to know which technique most effectively improves intelligibility in noise and found twang was the best one, compared to operatic resonant voice and “clear speech,” she said.

“Because noise changes the way people talk—which is the Lombard effect—we thought it would make it difficult for people to use learned therapy techniques. Our recent study showed otherwise, however. People did better with using a technique called “clear speech” when they were hearing the noise. This finding was unexpected and needs further exploration,” Ishikawa said.

Orbelo added that certain sounds, such as twang, as Ishikawa mentioned or talking like a gangster—think Edward G. Robinson In “The Last Gangster”—can help cut through noisy environments.

Monson’s presentation was on the “Directivity of singing voice.” Monson talked about singers’ need to get accommodated to acoustic spaces because they “rely on auditory feedback to regulate vocal output.”

But directivity of a voice matters as much as reflective surfaces because sounds “don’t necessarily go in all directions.”

Other presenters included Dario D’Orazio from the Universita’ di Bologna, Italy, on the “Auralization of soprano;” lan Howell of the New England Conservatory of Music, who presented on “Spectrographic and perceptual analysis of the singing voice,” and Mary Pietrowicz, a Senior Research Scientist at the Illinois Applied Research Institute, presented on “Application of machine learning for voice quality detection among actors.”

Editor’s note:

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

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Student Profile: Ariel Freehill

April 03, 2022 | AHS Staff

Ariel Freehill

What kept you busy outside of your coursework?

I love doing projects, so I spent a lot of time doing those. I was able to even refurbish a 100-year-old round dining room table, and I love how it turned out. I also enjoyed having lazy days with my husband and my dog when I wasn’t working on coursework.

What inspired you to pursue a MHA degree?

I started my undergraduate college career thinking I wanted to be a doctor, then I switched to being a nurse. I even took a CNA course through Parkland College, and I realized that the clinical side of healthcare was just not for me. I knew I wanted to have a career in healthcare, so that led me to getting my Bachelors in Community Health. Once I was done with that, I knew I wanted to have the ability to hold a leadership position in healthcare someday, which ultimately led me to purse a MHA degree.

Why did you choose Illinois for your MHA?

My choice to go to Illinois for college started when I was super young. That’s why I pursued my undergraduate degree at Illinois, and I loved the university so much that I decided to stay two more years to complete the MHA program.

What advice do you have for current students OR prospective students?

Enjoy your time as a student and take advantage of all of the opportunities the program and university have to offer. I know all too well what it’s like to feel like you’re behind, like you should be onto the next step of life already. BUT once your time as a student is over, you have to enter the scary world of adulting so take full advantage of the life as a student while you can as everything will work itself out, and you’ll be grateful for all of the experiences you received during your time at Illinois.

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Alumni Spotlight—Megan-Brette Hamilton

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Jan. 05, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Alumni of the College of Applied Health Sciences have myriad career options thanks to the tremendous diversity of programs. We periodically will put the spotlight on an alum to find out what they’re doing now, what experiences they had and what AHS means to them. This week, we talk to Megan-Brette Hamilton, an SHS alum who is now an assistant professor in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at Auburn University.

Q: Why did you pick SHS?

A: I remember writing my personal statement in 2011 and, as you do, you write the first part as a general statement and then address a specific school for the latter part. As I was writing the latter part of my personal statement for University of Illinois, I realized how much the school aligned with what I was looking for; reputation, professors, university campus setting. It helped that my aunt, someone who had been in the field for decades before me, encouraged me to choose UIUC, and that both of my parents earned degrees from UIUC. Finally, I got advice from a professor at another university to choose my program according to the person I was going to work with for four plus years. And then I found (former SHS Associate Dept. Head) Laura DeThorne. I emailed her, she and I had a phone conversation and I became excited about the work she was doing in her lab and the idea of learning from her. After that, I was convinced I needed to go to AHS/SHS. From day 1, Dr. DeThorne was a strong advocate for me and as a result I received the Graduate College Distinguished Fellowship Award. To be honest, not having to pay for school, that also helped me make my decision.

Q: Which professors had the most impact on you?

A: As I mentioned before, Dr. DeThorne was an advocate for me from day 1. She wasn’t just my advisor, she was someone who valued my clinical background and my prior experience. We eventually formed a very strong friendship and collegial relationship, and we still collaborate. I also was impacted by Dr. Julie Hengst. Not only was she a committee member of mine for 2 of my projects, but because she also had an extensive clinical career before academia, she was able to speak to me in a way that disarmed me about leaving a job where I was a master clinician to re-learning how to be a student. Dr. Robin L. Jarrett was also someone who has had a huge impact on me. I worked in her lab in a different department across campus. In order for me to be the kind of researcher I am today, I needed to learn other ways of doing research from her perspective. The field of CSD often uses quantitative methods and is predominantly White. Working with Dr. Jarrett helped me to learn about qualitative methods from a sociological perspective and understand academia from someone like me, a Black woman, who also was a full professor. Finally, working with Dr. Cynthia Johnson made a long-lasting impact on me. She was a constant source of encouragement as a growing researcher and I learned first-hand from her about how our field and academia had changed throughout the years.

Q: What course did you most enjoy?

A: You have to remember that I earned a degree that allowed/encouraged me to explore classes in other departments. The way I look at my journey at that stage of my life was to take what I knew about my field in the 17 years I’d been in it and then add to it other content areas to enhance the impact I wanted to have on the field of CSD. All that to say, Language, Identity, and the Politics of Schooling taught by Dr. Anne Haas Dyson in the College of Education was a course I really enjoyed. I loved this course because it brought together all of the areas I was passionate about, language, culture, education, and communication. It was a class that wasn’t afraid to talk about race and class and dialects. And it used qualitative methods:) It reminded me why I decided to return to school at the ripe old age of 34, lol.

Q: Did you enter AHS knowing your career path, or did AHS help you decide?

A: As I mentioned earlier, I entered into the PhD program at age 34, after having had a first career as a practicing speech-language pathologist. I entered the program knowing that I was going to have three outcomes; 1) I was going to learn about some amazing content areas that I’d never been privy to, 2) I was going to learn how to do research, and 3) I was going to earn my doctorate. After that, I wasn’t sure what I’d do. I think being in the program prepared me well for my next steps even though I wasn’t sure what they’d be exactly. I ended up going into academia and constantly call myself “the accidental professor,” lol. I also didn’t know where my research focus would end up when I first started. I originally entered the program to study language processing differences with a concentration in cognitive neuroscience and ended up studying cultural-linguistic diversity with a focus on African American English. To be honest, being in the program helped me see a gap in our field that I could fill, so that’s what I’ve been working on ever since.

Q: Did your AHS experience lead to your current job?

A: Yes. I earned a doctorate from a research-intensive university in a department where I was taught how to do research and provided opportunities to teach and supervise. The skills I acquired in the program, including opportunities across departments and disciplines, allowed me to confidently apply for a tenure-track assistant professor position; which is my current job.

Q: What was your favorite on-campus experience?

A: As a daily enjoyment, I really loved working with my PhD classmates. We were from all different backgrounds and studied so many different areas of communication. We learned so much from each other about life and our field. As a one-time kind of experience, I have to say that it was when I ended up working with a wonderful group of doctoral students from the College of Education and being awarded an internal grant. We used it to put on a 2-day workshop aimed at reimagining education for youth in and beyond the classroom. We brought in Drs. Geneva Smitherman, Ana Celia Zentella, H. Samy Alim, and David E. Kirkland. I loved being around all of those intellectual minds and inserting my communication sciences and disorders perspectives into their conversations of education and language.

Q: What does AHS mean to you?

A: I saw AHS as a place that provided me with opportunities to connect with a variety of people and to grow as a researcher and educator. As I said earlier, I originally entered the program to study language processing differences and ended up studying cultural-linguistic diversity. The beauty is that AHS was a place that allowed me to do either. As a result, I was able to become a researcher with a strong interdisciplinary focus who impacts clinical practice within the field of speech-language pathology and beyond.

Dr. Megan-Brette Hamilton is an assistant professor at Auburn University and an ASHA certified speech-language pathologist (SLP)/communication specialist. Prior to academia, Dr. Hamilton worked as an SLP for 10 years in New York City, the largest school district in the U.S., where most of her caseload consisted of African American and Hispanic children. Currently, her research focuses on the classroom/educational and clinical experiences of speakers of other dialects of English, with a particular focus on African American English-speaking children and adults. Her passion lies in exploring the intersection of culture, language/dialect, communication, and literacy. Dr. Hamilton’s work also focuses on the cultural-linguistic competence and perspectives of professionals and students working with culturally-linguistically diverse populations. Through her work, she engages with such professionals by educating them on the importance of recognizing and validating language variations, culture, and identity; thereby raising one’s cultural-linguistic competence. Dr. Hamilton is the host of the Honeybee Connection podcast, author of Successful Strategies for Classroom Communication, and owner of www.meganbrettehamilton.com where she blogs and provides resources. 

Editor’s note:

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

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Husain sees use of brain imaging as vital to studying hearing disorders

Oct. 18, 2021 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

The main objective is to establish an international center of excellence for hearing research that transforms the field by using artificial intelligence and Big Data to translate research into practical clinical solutions

Department of Speech and Hearing Science Professor Fatima Husain received $125,000 in seed grant funding from the Discovery Partners Institute for her proposal titled “Hearing Health Institute.”

Fatima Husain’s grant will allow for the collection of brain imaging data (Photo by Brian Stauffer)

The main objective for Husain’s proposal is to establish an international center of excellence for hearing research that transforms the field by using artificial intelligence and Big Data to translate research into practical clinical solutions.

“I think insufficient resources (are being) directed towards studying hearing disorders using brain imaging,” Husain said. “The idea, the crux of it (is), can we create a public repository of previously-collected brain imaging data of individuals with normal hearing and various hearing disorders Brain imaging can be very valuable but it is also expensive. It’s extremely insightful in a condition like tinnitus, which is a subjective disorder. It can be very helpful in figuring out the impact of hearing loss and aging and differentiating between the two.”

Husain’s team will develop AI and Big Data tools to address three main areas: (1) prediction of clinical outcomes to motivate early intervention, (2) biomarker development to accelerate development of new and effective treatments, and (3) developing patient-centered treatment strategies to restore healthy hearing especially targeting underserved communities.

The idea of Big Data comes in with the creation of the Hearing Health Institute, which will allow for the collection of brain imaging data from about 500 study participants with partner institutions such as Northwestern University and Washington University in St. Louis, Husain said. The team intends to expand the repository by bringing in other affiliate labs.

“We are not just focused on only the hearing aspect of it. We have acquired data from a number of questionnaires testing different things. Other labs may have a lot more of neuropsychological workup, for instance. This additional data is necessary to make sense of the brain images and to compare groups. The images by themselves are not very useful. The metadata about patient characteristics along with the brain imaging big data will allow us to accelerate translational research.”

Another focus for the Hearing Health Institute is to motivate early intervention, Husain said. According to one large-scale longitudinal study Husain cited, as you get hearing loss you seem to cognitively age earlier.

“The idea then, is can we mitigate this kind of cognitive impairment by giving early intervention? By giving amplification earlier, how does it help? (What) we want to do with HHI is to map changes in brain function across the lifespan as a result of hearing loss and include intervention studies where available.

“Like among 55-year-olds, for instance, they show people with hearing loss tend to be slower at doing certain tasks. And that’s because they can’t hear very well. These are individuals with mild to moderate hearing loss who do not wear hearing aids yet. They have slightly different emotional network engagement and other possible changes. So if we map this out a little better it will motivate, perhaps, early interventions.”

Husain’s project also wants to find a way to better serve underserved communities.

“We’re trying to have a sort of the summer internship program, if everything goes well, next summer. And, we are trying to see if college students from Chicago and Champaign-Urbana, from underrepresented groups who have expertise is STEM and get them interested in hearing health and neuroscience.”

“We also want to partner with corporations to devise cheap solutions for hearing health, such as, smart phone-based apps.”

Editor’s note:

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

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Chancellor’s Distinguished Staff Award honorees include SHS’ Andrea Paceley

Aug. 28, 2021 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Illinois recognized 16 staff, including SHS office manager Andrea Paceley

Andrea Paceley provides support to SHS’ graduate programs (Photo provided)

Sixteen civil service employees were recognized for exceptional performance by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign—eight this year and eight in 2020. For the second consecutive year, concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic precluded a banquet for employees honored with the Chancellor’s Distinguished Staff Award.

Each recipient receives $1,000 and a plaque. Recipients’ names also are engraved on a plaque displayed in the Illinois Human Resources Office. The names of past winners are online.

Permanent staff members with at least two years of service and retired employees in status appointments during the calendar year may be nominated for the award. A committee recommends finalists, who are then approved by Chancellor Robert Jones.

Experiences in managing pandemic-related issues came to the forefront in many of the nomination forms for 2021 recipients, including Andrea Paceley in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science in the College of Applied Health Sciences.

Paceley, the office manager of SHS, provides support to the graduate program – including graduate admissions – and carries out general office duties.

“The pandemic required a pivot on how we conduct recruitment events, such as our open house for admitted students. Andrea worked closely with the Educational Policy Committee and director of graduate studies to transition to a virtual format,” wrote nominator Ian B. Mertes, an assistant professor of speech and hearing science. “This required a tremendous amount of effort on Andrea’s part to help develop materials, ensure that necessary information was obtained from faculty, interface with the prospective students, schedule the events and send invites, and follow-up with attendees.”

Paceley’s workstation in the front office makes her the department’s first point of contact. “Those who call, e-mail or stop in are greeted with a friendly personality and a willingness to assist. On the occasion when she does not know the answer, she tracks it down and responds quickly,” Mertes wrote. ”She also sends timely reminders to make sure tasks have been completed, keeping departmental operations running smoothly.”

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Exploring Extended High-Frequency Hearing

Aug. 10, 2021 | Anna Flanagan

If hearing above 8 kHz is not important, why is the human auditory system capable of hearing up to 20 kHz?

Brian Monson (Photo by Brian L. Stauffer)

Can you imagine having a conversation that included none of the following consonant sounds: s, sh, f, and ph? Known as voiceless fricatives, much of their energy occurs at the range of human hearing above 8 kilohertz (kHz), called extended high frequencies. In general, consonants tend to have more energy at the extended high frequencies than vowels. Yet conventional clinical hearing tests do not assess the performance of the auditory system above 8 kHz—which is above the highest notes on a piano—because of a longstanding assumption that hearing above 8 kHz is not important.

As Speech and Hearing Science Assistant Professor Brian Monson explains, the assumption took root during the development of the telephone about 100 years ago, when speech signals had to be compressed for transmission across wires. Early researchers simply cut out certain frequencies and asked people if they could still understand what was being said.

“Basically, they found that you didn’t need to hear frequencies above 3 or 4 kHz to have really good intelligibility,” he said, “and that got interpreted as ‘energy at higher frequencies is not important for speech.’”

For more than 10 years, Dr. Monson has been intrigued by and trying to answer the question, “If hearing above 8 kHz is not important, why is the human auditory system capable of hearing up to 20 kHz?” He recently received a five-year, $2 million grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders to continue his work in this area with a study titled “The ecological significance of extended high-frequency hearing in humans,” a study on which he will collaborate with researchers at the University of North Carolina and Boys Town National Research Hospital.

Extended high frequencies and noise

In this area of research, Dr. Monson’s basic hypothesis is that not only does extended high-frequency hearing have utility for humans, it plays a role in speech perception. His research group was one of the first to examine the value of extended high frequencies in the speech signal, and the first to demonstrate that extended high frequencies help listeners to determine whether speakers are facing them or turned away from them.

His research has scientific implications, of course, and expanding the state of knowledge in speech and hearing science means a great deal to Dr. Monson. There also is the potential for practical applications of his findings as well, for audiology testing, diagnosis, and intervention.

First of all, only testing below 8 kHz in the clinic does not measure the true function of the auditory system. Extended high-frequency hearing loss is the most common loss in humans because it occurs naturally with aging, with substantial loss occurring even by middle age. So if extended high frequencies are found to play a significant role in speech comprehension, everyone eventually will be affected and everyone will have undiagnosed, or hidden, hearing losses which are not detected by standard audiograms. To date, Dr. Monson and his colleagues have found a modest relationship between extended high frequencies and speech comprehension, but, importantly, it is in noisy environments that extended high frequencies are the most valuable.

“The number one complaint of hearing aid users, for many years, has been that they still have a hard time understanding speech in noisy situations,” Dr. Monson said. “Hearing aids do not represent extended high frequencies.”

Is the impact on speech comprehension large enough to justify taking on the challenge of developing new hearing aid technologies that restore extended high-frequency hearing? That is one of the questions that he hopes to address in the newly funded study. It will expand on a study published in 2019 that simulated a cocktail party but used only two background talkers. The new study will create an even more realistic noisy environment by using multiple talkers in different locations around a listener, as well as realistic reverberations that recreate how sound bounces around different room settings. It also will include a localization experiment to investigate whether extended high frequencies help listeners to determine where the talker of interest is located, with the assumption that this ultimately helps listeners to tune out other talkers.

While he would like his research to result in effective restorative technologies for individuals with extended high frequency hearing loss, Dr. Monson is excited that it already provides compelling evidence for assessing extended high-frequency hearing in the audiology clinic. In a 2020 paper in Hearing Research, he and others argued that implementation of extended high-frequency audiometry into clinical practice is relatively easy. Furthermore, measurements of hearing loss at extended high frequencies do predict speech perception ability in noise, suggesting such measures could be useful in identifying individuals at risk for listening difficulties in noisy situations. As he continues his research in this area, he hopes that continuing to present his findings through journals and conferences that target audiologists will positively impact clinical practice.

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External placements vital to students’ development

Aug. 03, 2021 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

All SHS students complete external internships, strengthening real-world skills and career pathways

All SHS students are required to take part in external placements, which are essentially internships with an external organization (Photo by Brian Stauffer)

Students in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science in the College of Applied Health Sciences expect excellent instruction in the classroom. When they venture off campus, however, is when they get a better sense of the career paths they might choose.

All SHS students are required to take part in external placements, which are essentially internships with an external organization. For some students in the master’s program for Speech-Language Pathology, external placements might begin as early as their second semester, said Noa Hannah, director of the audiology and speech-language pathology clinic in SHS. On the audiology side, said Clinical Assistant Professor Sadie Braun, students are given external placements in the summer after their first year in the four-year program.

“I think that our external placements are really the first place that our students get a sense of what audiology is like in the real world,” Braun said. “I think that’s when a lot starts to gel between what they’re learning in their academic classes and what they’re doing in clinic—that starts to come together when they get to their external placements.”

Hannah, who joined the university in 2019 and became clinic director in 2020, agreed, calling external placements “pivotal.”

“They’re pivotal in their learning because there’s only so much we can teach within the clinic,” Hannah said. “Going out on these externals is about professionalism, but … it’s really about understanding different cultures—different cultures of schools, different cultures of hospitals, different supervisory styles than what we have here at the university. So it’s pivotal in their learning how to apply their skills to new patient populations as well as new environments.”

Braun said audiology students gain experience in environments that we just can’t simulate within the SHS clinic environment.

“For example, we send them to a hearing aid manufacturer to get experience with the manufacturer side of things, or to a private practice or a big hospital so they get to see different environments audiologists can practice in and figure out where they might want to start in their first job,” she said.

Hannah said external placements give students the opportunity to deal with different patient populations, such as patients with dementia or traumatic brain injuries, or patients who have had strokes.

Braun said the external placements also help students to increase their independence and competence in using their skills.

There are also benefits for the organizations, such as hospitals and clinics, in which the students are placed.

“I think a lot of professionals just appreciate having some input in shaping the future of our field,” Braun said. “And when we send our students who have more experience, like a third-year audiology student, sometimes they can utilize that student who can be more independent to get a little bit of extra work done themselves.”

Braun said the external placements can also be a job “pipeline,” as some students are hired right out of their fourth-year placements.

For some UIUC alumni, it is a chance to give back, Hannah said.

“I have heard that they want input into teaching the next generation and I think the other thing is, people like teaching. People like sharing their knowledge … a lot of professionals enjoy that part of their profession and maybe don’t get that opportunity as often as they would like. This is a way to give back to a program that’s helped them to be successful.”

Any organization that is willing to act as an external placement for students in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science is encouraged to email Noa Hannah.

Editor’s note:

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

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Aronoff’s R01 grant aimed at maximizing binaural benefits

July 19, 2021 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Justin Aronoff’s study will provide insight into how the binaural auditory system combines signals from the two ears. (Photo provided)

Bilateral cochlear implants are used to provide hearing to both ears for deaf children and adults, as well as provide binaural hearing. But the benefits of bilateral implants can be hampered by poor integration of the devices’ left and right inputs. Thanks to an R01 grant, Department of Speech and Hearing Science associate professor Justin Aronoff has a plan to combat that.

Aronoff was awarded a $1.57 million grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders for his project “The contributions of interaurally correlated signals and interaurally symmetric place of stimulation for the binaural auditory system.” The proposed study will provide insight into how the binaural auditory system combines signals from the two ears and lay the groundwork for a shift in how and when clinicians program bilateral cochlear implant users’ devices to maximize binaural benefits.

Aronoff has just begun data collection, and recently gave a demonstration of some of the study’s testing, with research assistant Simin “Tina” Soleimanifar as the subject.

In Aronoff’s lab, Tina, who does not have a cochlear implant, sat next to a scope where she can see the signal that is coming out of a cochlear implant.

“The first thing that we need to do when we’re testing a cochlear implant patient is the same thing that you would do if you go into the (audiology) clinic,” Aronoff said. “And that’s basically setting what are the comfort and safety levels.”

As Aronoff explains, the simulations of cochlear implants are not really simulations of what it would sound like to cochlear implant users. “Most of them are just simulations of what it would sound like to only have 22 notes on your piano,” he said, “but everything has to be done on those 22 notes. That’s all you can hear. … (Renowned researcher) David Landsberger (said) listening with the cochlear implant is like playing the piano with a ping pong paddle.’ That you’re hitting a bunch of notes at once. And so if I turn off an electrode, that paddle gets a little wider for all the other notes. That’s the way to think about it.”

For Aronoff, the potential impact is deeply motivating. “Our ultimate aim is to improve speech perception in noise for cochlear implant users,” he said. “Being able to follow conversations in noisy environments is one of the biggest challenges they face, and we hope this technology can make a meaningful difference in their everyday lives.”

To understand what the signal from the cochlear implant actually is, you need to use a scope. Aronoff said the scope is connected to breakout boards, which allow him to tap the output from each electrode and put it on a scope and record it, to make sure the signal is what he thinks it is. Different devices have a different number of electrodes, Aronoff said. He was working with a cochlear device during this test run, which has 22 electrodes. During the test, he gradually increases the amount of stimulation until Tina can see something on the scope.

Aronoff compared the electrodes to shining a flashlight beam.

“As you walk away from a wall that you’re shining a flashlight beam on, the beam gets wider and wider. And these are fairly far away from the wall. What that means is if you have two flashlight beams right next to each other, they illuminate mostly the same spot on the wall. There’s a little difference on the edges, but they’re mostly overlapping. And that’s what’s happening as well with these electrodes. And so that’s why when you go from one electrode to the next, you’re stimulating most of the same neurons.”

One of the most important issues Aronoff hopes to tackle with this grant is about perception of interaural time differences (ITDs) and interaural level differences (ILDs), which limit the ability of bilateral cochlear implant users to localize sounds and understand speech in noisy environments.

“This is actually a big question of the grant,” he said. “We know for a pitch that it is very malleable. That over time whatever I tell you in your map, whichever electrodes get the same frequencies in the outside world will start sounding the same in terms of pitch. We don’t know if that’s true for ITDs and ILDs. That if the best electrodes paired together change over time or not. It definitely seems to be less malleable. We don’t know if it’s malleable at all. And that’s a big purpose of this grant, to see if that correlated input only affects the pitch that you hear, or if it’s affecting the entire auditory system.”

Another issue is that people who have two cochlear implants don’t always hear one coherent sound from the two ears. They will sometimes hear a left ear sound and a right ear sound, Aronoff said.

“If you’re listening over headphones and one of them is bad, the way to tell is you lift one up. You can’t be like, ‘Oh, I can hear it’s the left one that’s bad. You have to lift one up.’ That’s how well things fuse together into one perception. Now, for cochlear implant users, that’s often not the case. They often do not have things fusing together completely. And so that’s one thing that we look at. There’s big benefits to it.”

The benefit of having bilateral cochlear implants is more than just having a backup if one implant goes out, Aronoff said. They will allow you to hear better in noisy environments.

“If you’re listening to someone who’s across the table from you and there’s background noise, being able to spatially separate out where are the speakers from everyone else helps you. And having two ears gives you that ability. If you only have one ear, you cannot tell something’s coming from the left or the right. So two ears is really what you need. And most cochlear implant users can localize reasonably well. Not as good as normal hearing listeners, but reasonably well. So that’s a big benefit of having two ears as well. There’s other things in terms of when someone comes up on one side of you. If it’s on the side that doesn’t have a cochlear implant, you might not even know they’re talking to you. There’s a lot of benefits of having two instead of one.

Getting a good measure of fusion has been one of the more challenging aspects of the project, Aronoff said, since fusion is a central idea to the grant, and because everyone has a different idea of what fusion means.

“A lot of the other things are largely predicated on this idea that you hear it as a coherent sound,” he said. “You can’t localize a sound if it sounds like it’s coming from both ears. And so, yeah, fusion is very central to this grant. And so we have a lot of experiments where we are looking at that fusion and how different things affect it. “

Editor’s note:

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

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A Few Minutes With … Justin Aronoff

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Feb. 08, 2021 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Vince Lara at the University of Illinois speaks with Justin Aronoff, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science, about his research on the binaural auditory system as it relates to cochlear implants.

Transcript

VINCE LARA: Hi, and welcome to another edition of A Few Minutes With, the podcast that showcases Illinois College of Applied Health Sciences. I’m Vince Lara, and today I’m speaking with Justin Aronoff, an assistant professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science, about his research on the binaural auditory system as it relates to cochlear implants.

All right, Dr. Aronoff, thank you for joining me on this edition of the podcast. And commonly, I ask guests of the podcast about their inspirations for their research. So what made you look into auditory research? And you do primarily cochlear implants. So what made you look into that kind of research?

JUSTIN ARONOFF: So I kind of fell into this area. I was actually– I was having a bad experience at a postdoc. And there was another research position at the institute that I was at. And it was a hearing aid lab, primarily, that happened to have one cochlear implant project.

And I ended up on that project. So it’s a complete chance I ended up working a cochlear implant users at all. And I just fell in love with this field. I fell in love with the work. And it’s so rewarding to work with cochlear implant users.

One of the unique things about working with this patient population is that you tend to be individuals who come back to lab, you know, sometimes month after month for years. We’ll see them, and so we build up these relationships. It becomes very rewarding.

And it’s also a population that really values the research. So we do what is not necessarily the most exciting experiments to be in. We have people listen to beeps for five hours sometimes, which sounds very thrilling, I know. And I do sometimes ask them, look, I really appreciate that you’re coming in here and doing these incredibly boring experiments. I got to ask why, though. I appreciate it, but why are you doing it?

And what they often respond is they say, well, you know, I realize that what this device has done for me is a miracle. And I realize that the reason that it does what it does for me is because 20 years ago, there was someone sitting in a chair like this, listening to beeps for hours on end. And I really want to pay it forward. I really want to give to the next generation. And that type of sentiment is really kind of motivating to me, kept me really interested in continuing and working in this field.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, you kind of answered my next question, but I’ll ask it anyway. So you did your undergrad work in teaching, in the teaching of Spanish.

JUSTIN ARONOFF: Yes.

VINCE LARA: So then you followed with a masters in linguistics, which makes sense, right? You had these two– you had a pattern here. And then that led to Speech and Hearing Science. And that’s primarily because of how you felt about the population within that demographic, if you will?

JUSTIN ARONOFF: Well, I didn’t find cochlear implants until my postdoc.

VINCE LARA: OK.

JUSTIN ARONOFF: So my path was definitely fortuitous, to say the least. So when I was an undergrad here at U of I, in teaching Spanish, I did study abroad in Spain. And I took a linguistics course. And that got me very interested in linguistics.

And when I came back to campus, the only linguistics course that fit into my schedule was a neurolinguistic course by Molly Mack. And that really got me interested in the brain, and language, language acquisition. And so I went on and did my master’s in linguistics.

I was actually in the PhD program in linguistics at the University of Southern California. And as I got more and more interested into the neuro side of it, it felt like it didn’t quite fit into just the narrow range of neurologistics. I was interested in broader issues in neuroscience. And so I actually changed over into the neuroscience program to finish up my PhD.

And as I was doing that, I had the naive idea that, hey the auditory system seems like a fairly easy system to work with and to understand. But I was definitely a little naive at the time. And so that got me interested in working auditory work, and led to working at the House Ear Institute, and then eventually into doing postdoc there.

VINCE LARA: Mmhmm, now, Dr. Aronoff, for you listeners, recently received a seven-figure grant for a project that examines how the binary– binaural auditory system works. And so I’m curious, so the binaural system, for those of you who are uninitiated in this, is how the brain combines signals from our two ears. But I’m curious, why is that important?

JUSTIN ARONOFF: So having the ability to combine information from two ears can help in a lot of different situations. One of the big benefits is noisy environments. So typically, when you’re in a noisy environment– let’s say you’re at a restaurant– you’ve got the person you’re listening to is right in front of you but you’ve got all this background noise. You might have a table to side where those people are talking, you’re trying to tune them out.

The ability to basically attend to and separate out these spatially distinct sources of sound is dependent on the fact that you have two ears and that you can combine that information so it allows you to better focus on the person that you want to attend to, depending on wherever they are in space.

It’s also really important for localizing. So when you only have one ear, you really can’t tell if a sound is coming from the left or the right, especially if you don’t know what the volume is. There are some tricks you can use. But in general, most people are just very, very bad at being able to even tell the side that a sound is on when they only have one ear. Having two ears allows you to localize where the sound is.

You know, and also, patients also describe that having two ears makes the world seem fuller. It’s just this kind of qualitative sense to the world with two ears that you also don’t get having one ear alone.

VINCE LARA: Hmm. Your research is primarily focused on the importance of the study relative to cochlear implants. And–

JUSTIN ARONOFF: Yeah.

VINCE LARA: –the study states that you plan to maximize binaural benefits. And I wonder how you propose to do that.

JUSTIN ARONOFF: So one of the things that we found, my lab and other labs in this field, is that one of the big detriments in terms of getting those benefits from having two ears is when the information that you’re getting from the left and the right ear are mismatched.

And this can happen in a number of different ways. But the way that we see it happening with cochlear implants has to do with where the cochlear implant array is sitting, within the left or right cochlear, within the left and right ear, as well as what neurons are actually surviving in those two ears.

So it turns out that if you do not stimulate the same places, the same relative neurons in the left or the right ear, your ability to localize or ability to use these binaural cues and these cues that you get from having two ears decreases quite a lot.

Now, we know that there are potentially some mechanisms that can help you with that. There’s some ability to adapt. And our lab and other labs have looked at the ability to adapt to this mismatch between the two ears. It’s not clear how limited that is. We know you can do it in terms of the perception of what sounds like the same pitch in the two ears. Whether or not that translates to other things or not is not clear yet.

And really, what we’re trying to understand is how does that adaptation affect your ability? How do we need to change how we program these devices? When do we need to change? So if adaptation can handle a lot, maybe we can wait. If adaptation cannot handle a lot, then we need to start reprogramming very early on when you first get these devices.

And so we’re trying to look at kind of how do you manipulate where the stimulation is, how do you manipulate how similar the stimulation is in the two ears in order to improve those binaural benefits.

VINCE LARA: You helped develop a test that measures spectral resolution. And I’m wondering– two questions– what’s spectral resolution? And what’s the test?

JUSTIN ARONOFF: So spectral resolution is basically your ability to tell that two notes that you’re playing on the piano are not the same note. So people who have poor spectral resolution basically are not going to be able to tell that two notes that are roughly two notes apart are actually not the same note. And this is a common problem that we see with cochlear implant users.

And the reason that this is important is because it turns out that your ability to understand speech in a noisy environment really relates, in part, to your spectral resolution. And that’s something that we know that is a problem for cochlear implant users, as well as other patient populations.

So this is a test that I co-developed with David Landsberger when we were both at the House Ear Institute. And basically, this is a spectral-temporally modulated ripple test, or the SMRT. We’ve since modified it to create a version that can be used in the clinics as well, that’s the SMRT Lite for computeRless Measurement or SLRM. And basically what these measures are, they sound a lot like 1980s arcade sounds.

VINCE LARA: Hmm.

JUSTIN ARONOFF: And basically, it’s a fairly easy test. You just need to tell which sound is different, all right? And so you’ll hear three sounds that kind of sound– it’s kind of Space Invaders-y sound. And you’re trying to tell what’s [? different. ?] We’re manipulating, and there is some of the spectral properties, basically how close together these little ripples that we have across the spectrum, how close together they are and whether you can tell that one of them is closer than the other two.

VINCE LARA: Hmm.

JUSTIN ARONOFF: So it’s a fairly easy test for people to do. We’re not asking them to do anything but tell which one is different. And what’s nice about it is it turns out that it correlates well with speech perception in quiet as well as in noise. We’ve found that other labs around the world have found that as well.

So it turns out to be a nice kind of proxy test. Why the clinics have gotten interested in this is because one of the big problems that a lot of clinics have– I work with UIC in Chicago, for instance– is that they’ll often have patient populations that speak a wide range of languages, where English is not the native language. And when English is not your native language, testing someone on speech perception in English can be problematic because you don’t know if the problem is an auditory problem or if it’s a language problem.

VINCE LARA: Mmhmm.

JUSTIN ARONOFF: And so what’s nice about this test is that it’s a non-linguistic test. It doesn’t depend on languages. These are, like I said, kind of arcade-type sounds. There’s no linguistic content. But it does predict language performance.

VINCE LARA: Using your master’s in linguistics there, I would imagine.

JUSTIN ARONOFF: Yeah.

VINCE LARA: Yes. You know, you’re at an R1 university. And with that, your time is often dominated by research here at the University of Illinois. But teaching is a part of your responsibilities as well. And so I’m wondering what’s your favorite course to teach?

JUSTIN ARONOFF: That is a hard question. It’s hard to choose one, for sure. I really do enjoy teaching. And obviously, I got my degree in teaching. And I’m a licensed teacher in the state of Illinois. I come from a family of teachers. So it’s something I’m very passionate about.

If pressed, I would have to say it’s probably SHS280, Communication Neuroscience. It’s something that’s in that area where I got my PhD. I’m definitely very passionate about neuroscience. I really liked the large undergrad classes. I like those classes where this might be their first exposure to the area and you can really see the growth and the coming in really knowing next to nothing about the topic area, and then leaving. You can see kind of the growth of balance that they come out with.

So it’s a really rewarding class. And it’s just a fun class.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Justin Aronoff. For more podcasts on Illinois College of Applied Health Sciences, search A Few Minutes With on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, radio.com, and other places you get your podcasts fix Thanks for listening, and see you next time.

Editor’s note:

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

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