Hannah virtually presenting her Honors Thesis at the 2020 ArkSHA Convention
My name is Hannah Maestri and I am an undergraduate student majoring in Communication Sciences and Disorders with a Human Development and Family Sciences minor. At the beginning of my junior year I started my research with Dr. Rachel Glade. The title of my research is “Impact of Phonology Coursework on Phonemic Awareness in Future Speech- Language Pathologists”. Phonemic awareness is the ability to concentrate on and manipulate phonemes, the smallest speech sounds that can differentiate meaning in spoken words. Speech- Language Pathologists (SLPs) are an important part of intervention for literacy development in a variety of educational settings and it is important for SLPs to have proficient phonemic awareness skills in order to diagnose and treat disorders such as dyslexia accurately and efficiently. The goal of my research is to assess the phonemic awareness skills of undergraduate students prior to and after completing a phonology class at the University of Arkansas.
For my study, I recruited forty-eight undergraduate students, all of which were undergraduate Communication Sciences and Disorders students at the University of Arkansas. It was interesting to recruit and conduct this study because the participants were my peers that I see every day in class. I chose these specific students because of the phonology class that is required junior year in the Communication Sciences and Disorders program. The study was held at the Speech and Hearing Clinic on campus in the Epley Center for Health Professions. Prior to receiving any instruction in the phonology course, the participants completed two subtests of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, 2nd Edition (CTOPP-2), which measures phonological skills. After completing the phonology course, the participants completed the same two subtests from the CTOPP-2. The results from after the course were then compared to the first-time participants completed the assessment at the beginning of the course. My results showed a statistically significant increase in the phonological awareness score after the participants had completed the phonology course. These results were very promising and supported my hypothesis that phonology coursework will increase the phonemic awareness of undergraduate speech-language pathology students.
During the Spring 2020 semester, I submitted proposals to present at the Arkansas Speech-Language-Hearing Association Conference in Little Rock and the American Speech- Language-Hearing Association Conference in San Diego. Over the summer I received news that I had been accepted to present at the ASHA Conference but unfortunately the conference was cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic. There was no virtual conference, however I am still proud of myself for being accepted to present and for being given the opportunity to even submit a proposal. I also received the news that I had also been accepted to present my research at the ArkSHA Conference. ArkSHA decided to hold a virtual conference so I still had the opportunity to present.
During the Fall 2020 semester, I worked hard to put together my presentation for the virtual ArkSHA conference in October. This presentation was also going to count towards my honors thesis defense, so I was pretty nervous and wanted to make sure I had everything how it needed to be. My mentor worked with me to make sure I had all the information needed in my presentation and ran through my presentation with me before I recorded it. For this presentation, I had to learn how to present to a camera and recorded my presentation via Zoom. Obviously, this is not what I had imagined my research presentation and honors thesis defense looking like but I am so thankful that I was still given an opportunity to present something that I had worked so hard on over the past few years.
Next, I will be working on finishing up my honors thesis paper and editing the final draft with the help of my mentor. I will then be sending my paper to my committee members to get final comments and I will then have my Honors Defense form signed which will be the last step. It seems surreal that my research and college journey are coming to a close in the next semester. I have learned so much about the research process and about my topic that I would not have known if I had not chosen to complete an honors thesis.