Southeast Texas is rich in cultural diversity. The confluence of dialects among cultural and ethnic groups such as African-American, Cajun and Hispanic, as well as the Texan’s legendary drawl, make for an interesting mix of language nuances and speech patterns in children. Unfortunately, language impairment in Southeast Texas children isn’t restricted to any dialect or cultural background, and clinical therapists must account for these factors when diagnosing and treating the disorders.
Monica Harn, associate professor of speech and hearing sciences, is the principal investigator for a National Institutes of Health grant to determine the effectiveness of a specialized manual treatment intervention. The $150,000, two-year grant is directed toward testing and providing therapeutic treatment for pre-school and elementary students who have difficulties with forming words, word order and linguistic meaning.
“The speech and hearing department has satellite clinics in Port Arthur and Orange, where our graduate students are working with language-impaired students,” Harn said. “The research project is progressing very well because the special-education directors, principals, teachers and speech-language pathologists have been so positive and helpful in Port Arthur ISD and Little Cypress-Mauriceville CISD.”
The research seeks to gauge the effectiveness of a treatment intervention known as Addressing Multiple Aspects of Language Simultaneously. Lamar speech and hearing graduate students will administer the intervention therapy to a targeted population of 50 students in this unique randomized clinical trial. The approach has rarely been used for language impairment interventions, and this research will significantly contribute to the body of knowledge in the field. “There is a considerable shortage of certified speech therapists in this region and throughout Texas,” Harn noted. “This pervasive shortage means speech therapists must know what treatments and interventions are most effective in the least amount of time possible.”
The intervention therapy holds great promise for therapists to seek to help language-impaired students efficiently and effectively. Lamar students engaged in this research collect and analyze data from the interventions and extrapolate those findings to the broader population of students. The knowledge and experience graduate students gain by conducting these interventions will help them become more skilled in serving diverse cultures in their professional careers.
“Addressing the needs of children with language disabilities in regions where variant dialects are spoken meets a primary goal of reducing health disparities across different segments of the population,” Harn said. “This research is so important because it promotes the health of people with disabilities, prevents secondary conditions derived from language impairment and eliminates disparities between people with and without disabilities.”
