Communication Sciences and Disorders

KidsCare Therapy, a pediatric home health care business based in Dallas, has chosen ACU alumna Alex Guiton as their therapist of the year! Guiton (’08) was praised as an energetic therapist who is willing to step out of her comfort zone to learn new interventions. She was hired to complete her CF with KidsCare at the Fort Worth branch two and a half years ago and continues to be a dedicated therapist. The Communication Sciences and Disorders department is delighted to call her one of our own and we celebrate with her for receiving this honor. Congratulations, Alex!

Dr. Terry Baggs, assistant professor and CSD graduate advisor, was recently published in the Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice in January of this year. His research article, “Has Speech-Language Pathology Changed? Personality Types of Contemporary Students,” is the largest personality survey of speech-language pathologists since the Meyers-Briggs studies in the 1960s and 1970s.

The study examined the personality traits of 320 speech-language pathology graduate students from six different universities throughout the country. Dr. Baggs found that a majority of students exhibited very different personality types than researchers from the 1980s documented, pointing to a shift in the personality of SLPs from even a generation ago.

Dr. Baggs was also invited to publish an article last March in The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s online periodical, Perspectives in Administration and Supervision. His article,  “Understanding Personality: A Key to Supervisory Success,” explores how speech-language pathologists’ personalities might impact their clinical success.

ASHA’s Special Interest Groups (SIGs) are designed to provide specialized resources and research for practicing clinicians. Currently, Dr. Baggs’ article is a free sample article under SIG 11 (Administration and Supervision) http://asha.org/SIG/Perspectives-Sample-Articles/. Take some time to read these articles by one of our own!

For those of you who have not been on campus recently, the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders has moved the clinic to a new location. It is now in the east end of the McKenzie Dormitory where the old medical clinic was once housed.

At the Center for Speech and Language Disorders, graduate students in the department provide evaluation, diagnosis and treatment for individuals with disorders in articulation, fluency, voice, language and swallowing. These students work under the supervision of licensed and certified speech-language pathologists.

The new space has been more conducive to therapy sessions. There are four therapy rooms with greater space to move around and windows to let in natural light. The clinic also has a large waiting room and front office, an observation room for students, a conference room, a clinician office, two supervisor offices, and plenty of closet space for materials. It has been a blessing to be able to grow our clinic through this new location. We hope to continue to make the Center for Speech and Language Disorders a place where Christ’s love is shown through our lives and professional services.

For more information, or to make an appointment, call (325) 674-2074 or email Diana Taylor at dlt05a@acu.edu.

This summer we have students spread across the globe studying and ministering in many different countries.  Dr. Lynette Austin and four of our students are participating in the Global Healthcare Study Abroad in Uruguay with the Pre-Health Professions group. There is a little blurb about the experience in the ACU Today blog (http://blogs.acu.edu/acutoday/2012/06/06/students-explore-global-healthcare-in-uruguay/).

We also have several undergraduate students participating in Let’s Start Talking in Thailand and Malaysia this summer.  Seven of our graduate students will be returning from Zambia in the next week.  They participated with Harding University in serving children at the Namwianga Mission.

All of these students have incredible stories to tell!  Check back in August for posts about their experiences.

Welcome to the Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) blog!!!  This is the realization of a dream that started several years ago — to have an accessible way to easily and frequently communicate with alumni, students (current and future) and individuals in our community.   Our plans are to highlight upcoming events as well as news about faculty and alumni.

This week we will all be in San Antonio at the TSHA convention attending seminars and presenting research.  All of our graduate students will be presenting posters on Friday and Saturday mornings.  In addition, there will be an ACU table at the Friday afternoon “University Day” so stop by and see us!

This summer, Dr. Lynette Austin will be participating in the Study Abroad program with the Pre-Health professions.  Students will travel to Montevideo, Uruguay taking coursework in Global Health Care.  They will visit hospitals and clinics in Uruguay and Buenos Aires, Argentina.  I’m excited about this opportunity for students to gain knowledge about differences in health care systems around the world.  The Study Abroad trip is scheduled for every other summer and I hope to participate in the summer of 2014!

I hope you enjoy the information we post and I look forward to hearing from you about where you are living and working.