School of Communication Science and Disorders Doctoral Candidate and FIREFLIES Fellow Kiana Hines recently had her first-author publication in Communication Disorders Quarterly. 

Co-authored by Dr. Carla Wood and Dr. Keisey Fumero, “Go, going, goed: Relation between verb tense errors and reading comprehension skills in English Learners” explored the concept that if Spanish-English Learners who present with difficulties producing the robust and challenging verbs of English in writing, does that also relate to difficulties with comprehending the same verbs during reading comprehension.

Hines told CCI that the collaboration on this project was multifaceted. Undergraduate students helped analyze over 100 writing samples for the verb errors and types of errors (i.e. past, present, future tense errors), while Hines and Dr. Wood conducted the statistical analysis of the study, and Dr. Fumero and Dr. Wood worked together to write different sections of the manuscript. 

“I hope readers acknowledge the wealth of information that can be obtained from a writing sample and how information obtained from a writing sample could be used to predict and analyze components of reading comprehension.” 

Hines shared with us that her proudest moment from this research and publication was starting this project as a first year student and being able to obtain a first-author publication as a second year doctoral student. 

“I am grateful for the opportunity to write research that can be used by other researchers and practicing speech language pathologists (SLPs),” said Hines. “It is still surreal to think that I am writing research that I once read as a student and SLP.”