The Florida State University’s School of Communication Science & Disorders was well-represented at the 2009 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Convention in New Orleans, as 13 faculty members and 23 students conducted 36 presentations of their research at the event.

Graduate students have an outstanding opportunity not only to conduct research on an array of topics, but also to present their findings to speech-language pathologists and audiologists from all over the country at ASHA’s annual convention.

“It’s an opportunity to meet new people and make new connections for future collaboration, as well as to maintain previous connections,” said graduate student Elizabeth Wilson-Fowler, who shared two presentations, one of which was “Morphological Awareness and Its Relation to Literacy in College Students.”

Danielle Brimo, who presented a study titled “A Preliminary Investigation of Eye Gaze during Initial MGR Acquisition,” said the process of presenting got easier.

“It was very nerve racking at first, but once I started the explanation of our research project, I realized how much I have learned and how easy it became to talk about our research,” she said.

There are several benefits to presenting at ASHA. Wilson Fowler said she gained confidence in both researching and presenting. “For many of us, it may be the first time that we feel as if we are the ‘experts’ in an area as we are able to discuss specific projects that we have engaged in over our years as doctoral or master’s students.”

Laura Gingrich, who presented two posters at ASHA, said, “Discussion with clinicians generated some great ideas for further research and applications.” Her posters were titled “False Memory in Semantically Related Word Lists: Gender & Confidence” and “Objective Clinical Dysphagia Evaluation: Accelerometry & Tongue Function (with particular focus on tongue strength and function for persons with Parkinson Disease).”