Holly Storkel, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
Holly Storkel, Ph.D., joined NIDCD in August 2022 to serve as Program Officer for the Language Program, part of NIDCD’s Division of Scientific Programs. Dr. Storkel was previously a professor in the Speech-Language-Hearing: Sciences and Disorders Department at the University of Kansas.
Dr. Storkel’s expertise in language and language disorders includes two decades of conducting NIDCD-funded research on sound and word learning in children with phonological or language disorders. Her work has included theoretical and experimental research to understand the typical process of language learning and to uncover the nature of language disorders; clinical trials to develop behavioral treatments for children with developmental language disorders; and a focus on pragmatic clinical trials and implementation science to move treatments into real-world settings.
Her extensive experience in judging the scientific merit of research in language and language disorders stems in part from four associate editor/editor-in-chief positions with journals, two terms as a standing panel member on NIH study sections, and work with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation grant and awards program. She also has ample experience mentoring early-career investigators.
Dr. Storkel received a bachelor’s degree in speech and hearing sciences from Indiana University in Bloomington, and a master’s degree in speech-language pathology and a doctorate in speech and hearing sciences from the University of Washington in Seattle. She completed a clinical fellowship year during her doctoral program by working in a private practice specializing in language disorders in children. She was a postdoctoral fellow in speech and hearing sciences and cognitive psychology at Indiana University before joining the University of Kansas faculty in 2001.
Session: How to accelerate clinical research: Preliminary thoughts and discussion
Thursday, May 30, 10:00 – 11:30 AM CST
Cathy Binger, Ph.D., CCC-SLP & Jennifer Kent-Walsh, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
University of New Mexico
After working for a number of years as a clinical SLP, Dr. Binger earned her PhD from Penn State University. Her primary research interest is developing and evaluating effective approaches to support the grammatical and semantic development of children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).
Dr. Binger collaborates closely with Dr. Jennifer Kent-Walsh from the University of Central Florida. Their research focuses on helping to ensure that children with severe speech impairments meet their full communicative potential. When children communicate more effectively, they can achieve better educational and social outcomes. Their most recent joint projects include the completion of two randomized controlled trials demonstrating the effectiveness of their AAC Generative Language Intervention (AAC-GLI) program for young children with and without cognitive impairments who need AAC. Next steps in this line of research include the development of valid, reliable, developmentally sensitive, and clinically feasible aided language measures. Additional projects address the need to use a developmental model for aided language vocabulary selection and the integration of implementation science approaches within the communication sciences and disorders discipline.
University of Central Florida
Jennifer Kent-Walsh, PhD., CCC-SLP, ASHA Fellow, FLASHA Honoree, is Pegasus Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Director the FAAST Assistive Technology Demonstration Center, and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Health Professions and Sciences at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Kent-Walsh received her Bachelor of Education degree from McGill University (Montreal, QC), her Master of Science degree in Communication Disorders from Dalhousie University (Halifax, NS), and her Doctor of Philosophy in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The Pennsylvania State University (University Park, PA). Along with her primary research collaborator, Cathy Binger, and their research team, Dr. Kent-Walsh concentrates her research efforts on developing and evaluating interventions designed to advance language and communication outcomes for children with developmental disabilities who use AAC. This line of research involves direct communication intervention and assessment work with children who have significant speech impairments, as well as indirect interventions with the communication partners of these children, including parents, peers, and service-providers. This work has been widely published and supported by a variety of local, state, and federal funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIDCD).
Session: AAC & DLD: The Ties that Bind
Thursday, May 30, 1:30 – 3:00 PM CST
Yael Arbel, PhD, CCC-SLP
MGH Institute of Health Professions
Yael Arbel, PhD, CCC-SLP, is a Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at MGH Institute of Health Professions. She is also Co-Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Group and teaches in the PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences program. Arbel uses behavioral and electrophysiological measures to study the cognitive processes that underlie typical and atypical learning in children. Her research focuses on understanding the impaired learning mechanism in children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and identifying factors that affect feedback-based learning in children with this disorder.
Session: Learning from Feedback? – An Examination of Feedback-based Learning in Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)
Friday, May 31, 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM CST
Yolanda F. Holt, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
East Carolina University
Dr. Yolanda F. Holt, PhD CCC-SLP, is the Bremer Distinguished Scholar in Language and Literacy at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. Her academic journey began with a BS in Political Science from Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, followed by an MEd at North Carolina Central University and a PhD in Speech and Hearing Science from the Ohio State University. Before joining ECU Holt worked as a Speech Language Pathologist in Ohio, Virginia, and North Carolina, serving diverse clients in diverse settings. These experiences fostered her passion for community engaged research with a focus on understanding the intricacies of dialect variation in African American and Southern American English. Holt’s writing and research explores the rich linguistic diversity in the multiple communities that make up our society. She is presently working on a series of experiments on speech production and perception specifically tailored to the unique linguistic characteristics of eastern North Carolina speakers.
Session: Centering the other: A community engaged approach to language and literacy development
Saturday, June 1, 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM CST
View previous years’ poster and speaker information in the SRCLD Archive.
Supported in part by: NIDCD and NICHD, NIH, R13 DC001677, Margarita Kaushanskaya and Audra Sterling, Principal Investigators
University of Wisconsin-Madison – Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders