Program News

Twenty-four new graduate students will begin our program this year. They join the 23 second-year students that are placed in hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, community clinics and schools across Texas and Louisiana. In May 2009, 19 students graduated, and like all recent SLP graduates, they have found employment in a variety of clinical settings.

The SLP program has filled another new position: Mrs. Staci Weir is now clinical supervisor working in our satellite sites. She has a background of working with a vast population in a variety of settings including: public schools, skilled nursing facilities, outpatient therapy and home health. Mrs. Weir is eager to begin work in our satellite sites. She is interested in the workload approach to service delivery within the public schools as well as inclusion therapy within the PPCD classroom.

The 2009 Summer Language Enrichment Program for children with language disorders, autism, and/or developmental delays was a success. All graduate students and families reported many positive outcomes.

Lamar University’s SLP program has formed a partnership West Orange Cove – Consolidated Independent School District. Other satellite locations include the Wheatley School of Early Education and Sam Houston Elementary School in Port Arthur, Texas. We are proud that these partnerships allow Lamar SLP graduate students, with faculty supervision, to work with children and adolescents with disabilities in public schools.

NSSLHA officer elections will be held this September. The department of Speech and Hearing Sciences would like to thank the 2008-2009 officers for all of their hard work!

Faculty and Student Scholarship

All faculty, Dr. Bill Harn, Dr. Monica Bellon-Harn, Dr. Tim Meline, Dr. Alana Mantie-Kozlowski, Mrs. Gina Watson, and Mrs. Jeri Sullivan, will be presenting at the American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention in New Orleans this November. Graduate students are participating in many of the presentations. The presentations include the following:

• "Explicit treatment of prosody with a child with Asperger Disorder" by Dr. Monica Bellon-Harn, Mrs. Gina Watson, and Dr. Alana Kozlowski
• "Asperger syndrome: An adult case study” by Mrs. Jeri Sullivan, Ms. Sarah Handley, Ms. Bahar Hatami, Ms. Amanda Fleener, and Mrs. Kristi Marino.
• “ACT: Collaborative Teaming in classrooms for students with severe-profound disabilities” by Mrs. Deidre Delcambre-Thigpen, Ms. Kristin Windle, Ms. Amanda Cormier, and Dr. Monica L. Bellon-Harn
• “Addressing Speech and Language Simultaneously: A Case Study” by Mrs. Maggie Credeur, Ms. Melissa Trzupek, Ms. Victoria Perry, and Dr. Monica L. Bellon-Harn

All faculty presented at the 2009 Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention. Our PRAXIS bowl team advanced to the semi-final round.

Dr. Kozlowski and Dr. Bellon-Harn received funding from the Research Council at Lamar University to pursue lines of research. Dr. Bellon-Harn is conducting a treatment study investigating speech sound disorders in preschool children. Dr. Kozlowski is comparing the discourse of individuals with dementia during and after speech-language therapy that utilizes a Montessori-based approach. Both studies include stipends for students in the speech-language pathology program.

Scholarships

Congratulations to undergraduate student Brooke Schneider on her Evening Sertoma scholarship! Sertoma is a service organization that helps people with speech, language, and hearing issues.

Congratulations to Cynthia Flores-Herndon. She received Paula and John Lovoi scholarship.

The Tony Houseman Memorial scholarship has been established by the family of Tony Houseman. It will be awarded in the future.