Audiology 2013

Conference Faculty

Read on to learn more about these dynamic presenters or view their disclosures.

Teri James Bellis, PhD, CCC-A, FAAA, F-ASHA, is author of When the Brain Can't Hear: Unraveling the Mystery of Auditory Processing Disorder (2002, Pocket Books), Dr. Bellis has been involved in the development, management, and implementation of audiologic and neurodiagnostic programs in clinical and educational settings for the past 29 years, including multimodality evoked potentials programs and central auditory processing service delivery programs. She received her doctorate in audiology with specialty certification in language and cognition from Northwestern University. An internationally recognized expert in CAPD, she has lectured and published widely on the subject of central auditory processing assessment and treatment. Dr. Bellis is professor and chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at The University of South Dakota and is a fellow of ASHA. The second edition of her bestselling textbook: Assessment and Management of Central Auditory Processing Disorders in the Educational Setting: From Science to Practice is available from Plural Publishing.

Mirela Boscariol, PhD, graduated in speech therapy at Faculdade de Odontologia de Bauru, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil. She has a PhD in medical sciences from the neurology department at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. She is currently doing her post-doctoral training at the neurology department and speech therapy school, UNICAMP, Brazil. She has experience in speech therapy, language, learning and central auditory processing.

Gail D. Chermak, PhD, CCC-A, is an internationally recognized authority on central auditory processing disorder (CAPD). She has published extensively and lectured around the world on differential diagnosis and treatment of CAPD. Her two-volume Handbook of (Central) Auditory Processing Disorder, edited with Frank Musiek and published in 2007, is considered the definitive text on CAPD. Dr. Chermak is professor of audiology and chair of the department of speech and hearing sciences at Washington State University. She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the American Academy of Audiology's (AAA) Distinguished Achievement Award and the "Book of the Year Award" for Handbook of (Central) Auditory Processing Disorder, Vol. I and II (with Frank Musiek, co-editor). She is a fellow of ASHA and is included in several major American and international biographical listings. She has chaired and served on a number of national professional committees and task forces, including the 2010 AAA task force which published evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for CAPD. She has authored over 100 articles and book chapters, and authored or edited 4 books. She is an assistant editor for the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology and she serves as editorial consultant for several other professional and scientific journals.

Piers Dawes, PhD, has a background in experimental psychology and speech and language therapy. He is interested in the cognitive aspects of hearing, and his research interests involve auditory processing and developmental psychology from childhood to old age, auditory plasticity, hearing genetics, and developmental disorders. His research methodologies include qualitative studies, psychometric, psychophysical, and electrophysiological (magnetoencephalography [MEG], electroencephalography [EEG], and auditory brainstem responses [ABR]) measures as well as epidemiological approaches.

Timothy D. Griffiths, FMedSci, is a neurologist who has a research group that studies auditory cognition using functional imaging. He runs a cognitive neurology clinic and also a clinic for assessment of patients with disordered central auditory analysis (with Dr. Bamiou at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London). He sees patients with developmental disorders, acquired disorders such as strokes, and degenerative disorders such as dementia.

Jane Hornickel, PhD, completed her PhD at Northwestern University in the Auditory Neuroscience Lab headed by Dr. Nina Kraus. Her long-term research goals are to identify neural correlates of developmental disorders in children, with the hope of targeting remediation to impact neural impairments. With Dr. Kraus, Jane documented differences in auditory brainstem responses (ABR) to speech in children who were poor readers relative to good readers. Additionally, Jane conducted a longitudinal intervention study assessing the impact of classroom assistive listening devices (FM systems) by poor readers with normal hearing. She found that children who wore FM systems for the school year showed gains in reading ability and in their ABR to speech, with the neural response becoming more consistent after using the devices. Jane is now a postdoctoral fellow in the Neurodevelopmental Disabilities Laboratory at Northwestern headed by Dr. Molly Losh. The lab seeks to identify language features that are common within families impacted by autism and fragile X syndrome, with genetic analyses of heritability planned. In a potential collaboration with Dr. Kraus, Jane hopes to identify neural correlates of language measures from Dr. Losh's lab within families, with the overall goal of early detection of risk factors for developmental disorders.

Vasiliki (Vivian) Maria Iliadou, PhD, is an assistant professor of Psychoacoustics at the Medical School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She is an ENT physician with a PhD in audiology. She was a faculty member in the "Central Auditory Processing—Current Research and Implications for Clinical Practice" 2009 masterclass in advanced audiology, UCL Institute of Hearing, and in the Global Perspectives of Central Auditory Processing Conference during AudiologyNOW American Academy of Audiology 2012. Her main research and clinical practice interests are central auditory processing, genetics in hearing, communication and learning disorders, and CAPD in neuropsychiatric disorders. She has established the first auditory processing clinic in Greece for children and adults in AHEPA University Hospital, Thessaloniki.

She has been a research fellow at UCL, Lund University, The Ohio State University, and Nottingham MRC-IHR. Her scientific publications cover the area of auditory processing disorders, genetics in hearing, speech in noise perception and psychometric evaluation. She has been publishing in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research; International Journal of Audiology; Journal of the American Academy of Audiology; and the International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology. She has acted as guest editor in Current Pediatric Reviews for a hot-topic issue on auditory processing disorder in 2011. She is an active reviewer in numerous high impact journals of audiology and otorhinolaryngology.

Nina Kraus, PhD, brings 25 years' experience in researching the biological underpinnings of auditory perception as head of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University. In the lab, which investigates the neurobiology underlying speech and music perception and learning-associated brain plasticity, her team studies normal listeners throughout the lifespan, clinical populations (dyslexia; autism; hearing loss), auditory experts (musicians), and an animal model. Her lab has always been motivated by translational issues, and the cornerstone of its research is dedicated to positively impacting communication in society.

Georgina Lynch, MS, CCC-SLP, is a licensed speech-language pathologist and holds a certification in public program administration from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Administration (OSPI) in the state of Washington. She holds a master of science degree in communication disorders, and the Certificate of Clinical Competence from ASHA. Ms. Lynch is a member of the clinical faculty in the speech and hearing sciences department at Washington State University (WSU). For the past decade, she has worked as a speech-language pathologist, learning specialist/consultant, and served as a member of administrative teams within the special education arena in public schools. In this capacity, Ms. Lynch provided direct support and consultation to Individualized Education Program teams and provided trainings related to special education regulations for the provision of services to students with a wide range of disabilities, including CAPD. She currently coordinates the undergraduate program in speech and hearing sciences at WSU, teaches, and works with graduate students pursuing careers in the field of speech-language pathology.

Frank E. Musiek, PhD, CCC-A, is professor and director of auditory research, department of speech, language, and hearing sciences and professor of otolaryngology, school of medicine, University of Connecticut. He is the 2007 AAA recipient of the James Jerger Career Award for Research in Audiology, the 2010 recipient of the Honors of the ASHA, and recipient of "Book of the Year Award" for Handbook of (Central) Auditory Processing Disorder, Vol. I and II (with Gail Chermak, co-editor). He has published over 190 articles and book chapters in the areas of auditory evoked potentials, central auditory disorders, neuroaudiology, and auditory neuroanatomy. He has authored or edited 9 books including his latest, Disorders of the Auditory System.

Kathy Pichora-Fuller, PhD, is a full professor in the department of psychology at the University of Toronto–Mississauga, an adjunct scientist at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institutean adjunct scientist at the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest in Toronto, and a guest professor at Linköping University in Sweden. She completed a BA in linguistics at the University of Toronto (1977) and a MSc in audiology and speech sciences at the University of British Columbia (1980). She worked as a clinical audiologist and then as supervisor of audiology at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto where she was involved in research on hearing rehabilitation.

She completed her PhD in psychology at the University of Toronto (1991). Until 2002, she was a faculty member in the school of audiology and speech sciences and director of the Institute for Hearing Accessibility Research at the University of British Columbia. She combines her clinical experience in rehabilitative audiology with experimental psychology and has earned an international reputation for her interdisciplinary approach in linking research on auditory and cognitive processing during communication in everyday life. She is now applying her lab research on communication in healthy aging to try to find solutions to the communication problems of older adults who suffer from both hearing and cognitive impairments.

Mridula Sharma, PhD, received her doctorate in audiology from Macquarie University (2004) and was a research fellow at the University of Auckland (2004–2007) before she joined Macquarie University in 2007 as a lecturer and program convener. In 2011, she was promoted to senior lecturer. She has 20 years of clinical experience in India, New Zealand, and Australia, as a speech pathologist and audiologist. As a research fellow, she established an EEG lab at Macquarie University and recently received a grant to setup a 64-channel EEG lab. She has research collaborations with colleagues from University of Montreal and Ottawa, Colorado (Boulder), Auckland, and the University of Sydney investigating the speech, language, prosody perception, and listening abilities in children and adults. Her other research focus is on auditory training in populations with hearing loss and auditory processing. Her recent paper in the International Journal of Audiology on interventions in children with listening difficulties was cited as the most read article of 2012. She is currently primary advisor to five PhD students and co-advising two other PhD students conducting research on listening abilities, prosody, and language and reading perception in children.

Dana Strait, PhD, researches the biological foundations of auditory perception, their development, and learning-associated brain plasticity. Her long-term goals include the development of a more comprehensive understanding of the nature and extent of brainstem dynamism, how these processes break down in disordered populations, and the role that auditory expertise plays to promote them. The work presented here was conducted together with Dr. Nina Kraus and her Auditory Neuroscience Lab at Northwestern University. Together, they study normal listeners throughout the lifespan, clinical populations (dyslexia; autism), auditory experts (musicians), and an animal model. Dr. Strait is currently a research associate at the Neural Systems Lab at the University of Maryland. She was formerly trained as an autism therapist, music educator, pianist, and oboist.

Linda Thibodeau, PhD, CCC-A/SLP, is a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas since 1996. She worked previously at The University of Texas at Austin, at The University of Texas Speech and Hearing Institute, in otolaryngology clinics, and in public schools. She teaches in the areas of amplification and pediatric and adult auditory rehabilitation. Her research at the Advanced Hearing Research Center at the Callier Center for Communication Disorders involves evaluating the speech perception of listeners with hearing loss and auditory processing problems as well as evaluating amplification systems and hearing assistance technology to help those persons. She has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, Deafness Research Foundation, National Organization of Hearing Research, and the Office of Special Education for her research.

Jeffrey Weihing, PhD, CCC-A, is an assistant professor in the University of Louisville's Division of Communicative Disorders, where he runs an active clinic for children and adults with CAPD. His research interests including improving methods of diagnosis and treatment of CAPD in children and adults, as well as electrophysiological applications for CAPD diagnosis. He is the author of more than five chapters on the topic of central auditory processing disorder and has published on the use of electrophysiological measures in the diagnosis of CAPD.