Dissertation Update: Academic Scree

Resting at Sentinel Pass

The summer days and months are fleeting.  It is already July (gulp!) and I know September is just around the corner. This dissertation update is a reflection on an important lesson I learned (or was reminded of) this past week.  Along with two dear friends, my husband and I traveled to Alberta, Canada. Originally, the trip was going to be a “completed dissertation” adventure.  I am still plugging along with my project and we decided to adventure nevertheless.  We hiked every day, exploring the Canadian Rockies in Banff National Park and K-Country.  The landscape was pristine.

On one particular hike (from Morraine Lake, to Larch Valley and Sentinel Pass), I was reminded of an important lesson: focus on one step at a time.  Particularly as I have been working on my dissertation, friends and colleagues have often offered supportive encouragement and advice (and I appreciate it very much!).  I am certain that this advice has included gentle reminders to tackle challenges as they arise, keep plugging along, and find strength in the knowledge that at some point, you’ll find yourself having completed the PhD.

The hike provided a visceral reflection on my dissertation process.  The first part of the hike was challenging but steady and predictable.  We readily estimated how long it would take us to cover a certain distance and plugged along.  Ahead we could see the sharp switchbacks crossing the slope upward toward the pass.  We made good time.

As we approximated the pass, the path narrowed and alternated from being covered with snow to being composed of scree (loose rocks/stones that can cover a mountain slope).  I’d take a step and the rocks would slide away.  I’d find a good grip, move my foot, and find another good grip.  I literally had to think about each single step as I completed it.   For a glorious hour, I wasn’t thinking about anything else, except each step.

There are days when I doubt my ability to successfully defend my project.  I doubt the topic’s importance and the limitations of the project’s scope.  These thoughts don’t get me closer to  a finished project and they distract me from the smaller steps that lay ahead.  As I take steps forward on my project, challenges will continue to arise, the rocks will fall away and I will have to find a different way to take the next step. However, as I stand on the side of my mountain of academic scree, I know through resilience and sharp focus on each step, I’ll find my way to the pass.

Social Communication in Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder – Research Study

photo credit: Susan Julien

My dissertation examines a specific social communication skill in preschool-age children with autism spectrum disorder. We are recruiting families to participate!

Participants will be asked to complete two research sessions. During the first session, participants will take two standardized assessments to measure their expressive and receptive language skills and nonverbal cognitive skills.  Participants will also have their hearing screened and complete a very short (~5 min) criterion-referenced assessment of their perspective-taking skills.  During the second session, participants will complete a shared book reading activity with me.  During the book reading, we will read a book and I will ask the child some questions about the story. We will also play with some objects related to the book and look at and talk about the pictures in the book.   This activity will last about 20 minutes.

If you are interested in participating, we are recruiting families to participate!

Dissertation Update + Science Literacy

This semester, I have had the opportunity to work with two undergraduate students. They are outstanding students who have volunteered their time to provide assistance on my dissertation study.  As I refine my skill set for mentorship and supervision, I have been reflecting upon my work as a TA and specifically some of the most stark realizations I have had during my PhD program.  While many of these “ah-ha” moments related to my own approach to teaching and communicating with students, some of the moments directly related to the students themselves.  And not specific students, but, on the whole, what do students generally struggle to understand?

Science. Yep, capital “S” science. I have observed students struggle to understand the basic components of systematic research.  Given the importance of empirical evidence for our practice as Speech-Language Pathologists (to make clinical recommendations and implement intervention) and the potential influence we have as practitioners (in team-based decision making with allied health and educational professionals and during tough conversations with caregivers and family members), I am committed to serving my future students by providing ample opportunities for them to practice reading and thinking about the empirical studies that support the work we do.   So, future students, buckle up, because this may be a challenge but will serve you in graduate school (and then, in your professional pursuits).

Do you want to get a head start?  Here’s what I look for and ask myself when I read articles:

1. Background (i.e., what is the general landscape of this area in our field? what is the “problem”?)
2. Purpose (i.e., why are the researchers conducting this study?)
3. Hypothesis (i.e., what do the researchers think will happen?)
4. Method (i.e., what did the researchers do to answer their RQs?)
5. Analyses (i.e., how did the researchers make sense of their data)
6. Results (i.e., what did the researchers find?)
7. Conclusions (i.e., what do we know now?  has the general landscape (see #1) changed slightly?  why are the results of this work important?)

After you are done reading, try to explain the study to someone else (this might help you identify components that you missed or didn’t quite understand).

Dissertation Update: Data collection continues 🙂  Chapters 1-3 written, revised, revised, revised. . .

Dissertation Update + Recent Reads

My last post was nearly 5 months ago. Yikes.  I promise, the dog lays around a lot, but not me. Here I am plugging away on my dissertation project and it is a top priority.   The finish line, while not yet in sight, gets closer every day. There remains quite a bit of work to do but I’m optimistic that it will all work out (and to be candid, I have not always been confident about that).  There are ups and downs, I remind myself, just as I remind the undergraduate students with whom I have had the opportunity to work.

Summer quickly passed.  I spent time working a part-time clinical position and enjoyed finding balance between providing clinical services to families and their children and my dissertation project.  Much of the reading related to my dissertation project relates to social communication, and specifically, communicative repair. It was rewarding to think about how the work I am doing might help us (our field, researchers and clinicians together) more completely understand and address a specific social communication skill (i.e., communicative repair) in children with ASD.  Clinical work reminds me how difficult it may be for some learners to acquire and maintain social communication skills as well as demonstrate robust generalization across social partners and contexts.

Along these lines, two recently published articles have caught my attention, the first, an ASHA Leader article “Beyond Skills: The Worth of Social Competence” (Winner & Crooke, 2016) describes the importance of considering the language we choose to talk about social-oriented goals and argues that using terms like social competence (compared to social skills) highlights perhaps the greater complexity involved in developing better social communication.  Additionally,  in the article, Dr. Janet Dodd presents a thoughtful description of the link between targeting social competence and the Common Core standards (see the stand alone text box near the end of the article).   I remain curious about how we best measure social competence? I doubt there will be a definitive answer.  One of my committee members, Dr. Sheri Stronach, encouraged me to think deeply about how we measure social communication intervention outcomes so that’s what I continue to do 🙂

The second (recent article that caught my attention) describes a curriculum designed to increase conversation skills of school age children with ASD and reports results from a pilot program that included four participants (see Müller, Cannon, Kornblum, Clark and Powers. 2016).  I appreciate the detailed description of the curriculum (read the article!). It mirrors other frameworks/curricula (e.g., Social Communication Intervention Project; Adams et al., 2012; Teaching Interaction Procedure; Leaf et al., 2009 and Think Social; Madrigal & Winner, 2008) and was implemented in a school setting.  I think it is important to note that the authors measured changes in discrete, observable conversation skills (pre and post intervention) as well as staff reports of participants’ skills generalization and growth over the course of the school year.  I think both school-based and private practice SLPs who work with children with social communication challenges will find the article valuable (note the limitations, including lack of experimental control via a control group or a robust single case design).  Nevertheless, I was encouraged to see the use of a mixed method design and look forward to more research (from this group and others) in this complex and extremely important area of our field.

For now, back to the dissertation work.

Dissertation Update: Arrivals and Departures

Spring has arrived.  My IRB approval has arrived.  The end of the semester has (almost) arrived.  I’m particularly excited about summer because I’ll be recruiting and collecting data for my dissertation as well as working part time as a clinician.  It will be a nice opportunity to work on balancing these two areas of my professional life.

In the interim, I’m looking forward to next week and my colleague, Katy O’Brien‘s dissertation defense.  Katy has been a dear colleague for the past 4 years.  I’m thrilled for her as she reaches this finish line.  Katy’s departure is a nice reminder to keep plugging away on my research project.  I’ve noticed myself getting stuck on minor hiccups (for example, when you write elegant syntax and R spits back 187094 warning and error messages) and losing sight of the bigger picture of my project and the reasons why doing research is important, motivating and satisfying to me.  For now, I’ll find inspiration in Katy’s journey and enjoy imagining (at least for 30 sec) my own finish line.

Dissertation Update: Light on the Horizon

March has arrived!  February was a productive (and short) month.  I modified the experimental task for my dissertation project, piloted the newly revised procedures with a couple of typically developing preschoolers, and wrote and submitted my IRB application and supporting materials.

This term, I’m serving as a teaching assistant for Dr. Ben Munson (course = Phonetics). I am really enjoying this work, particularly in the latter part of my doctoral studies. It provides an opportunity for me to reflect on my own teaching while supporting Dr. Munson as well as tuning up my IPA transcription skills.  All good things.

Dr. Liza Finestack and I submitted a proposal for SRCLD in June.  We found out this week it was accepted (great news!) and I am looking forward to attending that conference.  Look for our poster that reports the effects of language sampling context on the linguistic productivity and complexity of children with ASD or PLI.

There is definitely light on the horizon.  I haven’t always been able to see it.  In fact, at times, my path has felt more like a tunnel than a sweeping landscape.   I anticipate that many of my colleagues could identify with a similar feeling at some point during their doctoral studies.   As I move forward with my dissertation, I feel well supported AND independent in my work (an important balance).  I am eager to start recruiting for my study and to work closely with 1-2 graduate student clinicians who will be administering assessments and the experimental task.   (Stay tuned for more information if you want to help with the project.)

 

Dissertation Update: Getting my Ducks in a Row

This is the first post in (what I plan to be) a series of dissertation updates.  Last fall, with my advisors, I set a goal to have written and submitted my prospectus to my committee by Spring Term 2016.  If I have learned anything (and of course, I have learned many things during my doctoral program), it is that self-imposed deadlines facilitate productive writing and small successes must be celebrated.  Happily, I report that I submitted my proposal (!) and met with them as a committee (!!) for the formal prospectus meeting. The semester begins tomorrow and so today, I am celebrating with a next steps list (the ducks and the row).

Going into the meeting, I anticipated changes to my proposed project.   Particularly after piloting my task with a typically developing kiddo, I knew the task needed to be shorter and more structured.   In addition to discussing how to modify the task, my committee offered suggestions for modifying my analyses, likely using a non-parametric approach.  Most broadly,  we discussed simplifying the project.  I think I am arriving at a more manageable size project that allows me to: 1) have a nice look at how preschool age children initiate requests for communicative repair within a structured context and 2) answers my primary research question – Do preschool age children with ASD differ from their similar age typically developing peers in their initiations of requests for communicative repair following insufficient communicative bids?

Thus, my next steps list includes: creating 1-2 task prototypes that are more structured, shorter in duration, and smaller in scope, putting together a preliminary budget for assessment and other task-related materials, and piloting the task(s) with 2-3 more typically developing children.

At this point, I think I am still gathering the ducks to put them in a row.

Happy Spring Term.

 

Book Review – Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism (Prizant, 2015)

The SCERTS (Prizant, Wetherby, Rubin, Laurent, & Rydell, 2006) approach is not new to me.  The clinic where I practice utilizes the model for assessment and intervention for children with ASD. The SCERTS philosophy is reflected in Dr. Prizant’s new book, and refreshingly, it is presented in a parent-friendly way.  I think the book is a valuable resource for people interested in considering ASD from a more humanistic vantage point.  There are many examples from Dr. Prizant’s professional experience working with persons with neurodevelopmental disabilities and these highlight some of the experiences that parents and providers may have.  Dr. Prizant’s book provides a tool for providers to suggest to parents, particularly early in the assessment process.

One section was particularly notable to me.  In that section, Dr. Prizant described the traits and characteristics of intervention that best serve persons with ASD (and I would argue, anyone receiving intervention services).   Dr. Prizant describes people who “get It.” Critically, he notes these people, sometimes professionals, do not necessarily have a specific credential, type of training or even a great deal of experience working with persons with ASD.  He describes several traits that, in his experience, are important, including: empathy, sensitivity, shared control, trust, humor, and flexibility.

I think most simply, our capacity as humans to think critically (thus designing the most effective strategies for acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of new skills) and act empathetically ought to be reflected in the ways in which we deliver service for persons with ASD.

I plan to recommend the book to parents and allied health professionals who may be interested in the SCERTS model and/or a bigger picture view of persons with ASD.

ASHA 2015

ASHA 2015 – A Comparison of High and Low Dosages of Milieu Teaching Models on Vocabulary Acquisition (Julien & Reichle)

This is a quick follow up on my trip to Denver for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention. Generally, it was a positive experience, despite a flight delay and bumpy ride to Denver.  I enjoyed some quality time with Liza at the gate.  Mentors provide support in many ways including when we may feel nervous (even about flying).   I had some great questions related to my research project and am excited to continue to think about treatment intensity within intervention studies.

Dr. Christine Dollaghan’s talk was probably the most compelling to me – she discussed her ideas about assessment tools and how we think about them in terms of sensitivity and specificity as well as their potential impact.   She encouraged us to think about assessments as “decisional” or “non-decisional.” Decisional assessments are those that have lingering effects, such as receiving (or not) a diagnosis of a particular communication disorder or becoming eligible (or not) for services.  Decisional assessments initiate experiences that would not otherwise have occurred in a person’s life.   Because of their potential impacts, Dr. Dollaghan challenged how we evaluate our tools and described the potential negative consequences of false positives and false negatives.   Near the end of her talk, she asked, “What would it mean if we changed how we thought about assessments?” One of her answers was to think about examining constellations of skills.  I’m still considering what this means for my practice and interest in social communication but I think it is a valuable way to consider assessment and to move our field forward in how we think about the decisions we make about services and approaches to intervention.

Finally, my time at ASHA was a valuable reminder about connecting with colleagues – I went to a handful of sessions with a colleague from my MA program (she lives and practices in IL now) and it was refreshing to hear her ideas and talk about some of the current challenges in her practice.  I got to spend some time with Bita, too!  Dr. Benjamin Munson (with Dr. Leah Fabiano-Smith and Dr. Fred Eckman) facilitated a great session related to Bilingual Phonological Acquisition and Second Language Phonology. There was a strong U of MN – Twin Cities contingent in attendance and it was great to see so many colleagues and talk about their clinical practices.

As has been the case the past few years, I was exhausted but energized about my work and my place in the field of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences.