Adults who have suffered a stroke, traumatic brain injury or other neurologic condition often face significant challenges regaining their ability to communicate.
A program at the UT Dallas Callier Center for Communication Disorders is helping to make the process easier.
The Communication and Learning Program provides speech-language therapy for adults with communication and cognitive difficulties. The center is currently recruiting participants for the spring semester.
“The Communication and Learning Program was designed to help our clients with neurological injuries attain their full potential for communication, while at the same time provide our graduate students with valuable clinical experience,” said Lucinda Dean, speech-language pathologist and one of the program’s supervisors.
Twice per week Callier Center clinicians and graduate students enrolled in the School of Behavioral and Brains Sciences’ master’s program in communication disorders provide group and individual therapy for two-and-a-half hours per session.
The graduate students support licensed, speech-language pathologists in conducting the therapy which focuses on improving speech, language and cognitive skills.
“As much as I hope the clients are learning from me, I am learning from them,” said Brooke Frazier, graduate student. “They work so hard during the sessions and really encourage one another. Because of this program, I now have a strong interest in providing therapy for adults.”
In addition to working with the clients, the clinicians provide the family members with the education and support they need to improve the communication skills at home.
“Through practice, hard work and the support of their families, our clients are regaining their ability to communicate and improving their quality of life,” said Dean.
Individuals interested in registering for the spring semester should contact Lucinda Dean or Felicity Sale at 972-883-3630.
Media Contact: Debra Brown, UT Dallas, (214) 905-3049, debra@utdallas.edu or the Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, newscenter@utdallas.edu
Some clients in the program use an augmentative communication device to help them “speak.” The device, which is about the size of a hand-held computer, projects a variety of images on the screen and generates a voice output based on the picture that is selected.