Presenting my poster during the Poster session

Author: Grace Atkins | Major: Communication Sciences and Disorders | Semester: Fall 2023

My research was to see if children in speech or language therapy have a delayed development of theory of mind. Theory of mind is the idea that people have ideas and thoughts that are different from our own and starts to develop around ages 3-5.

I presented my research at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. There were over 3,000 students there and it was such a wonderful opportunity to see what students my age are interested in and how they want to contribute to their respective fields through research. I was surprised by the amount of people who came to learn about my research and said they were not studying speech therapy but they love learning about the concept of theory of mind and wanted to hear about what I discovered during my research. I got some feedback about improved ways to collect data and some faculty members suggested areas of research that would follow-up these findings if I were to continue researching this topic.

I have never attended an academic conference before, so it was all very new to me. I also do not like presenting or talking in front of people, so this trip gave me the opportunity to improve my public speaking skills as I had to explain my work to lots of people. I actually enjoyed it way more than I thought I was going to and am thankful that this experience has provided me with an opportunity to connect with so many students who are vastly different from me.

I would recommend presenting at a conference or in some form to every student who conducts research because it takes practice and a deep understanding of the knowledge behind the research to help explain it to people who might not be familiar with it. Some advice I would give is to try not to sound too rehearsed when explaining your research because it is more natural when it’s a conversation between two people instead of being overloaded with a ton of new information. Also, I would say that when going to a large conference such as this, to really be open to trying new things and meeting new people. I tried to squeeze in as many presentations and sessions as I could, and I learned so many cool things that I never thought I was interested in before.

This was the last step of my undergraduate thesis journey, and after I graduate in May, I will be attending the University of Kansas Master’s program in Speech-Language Therapy! I am very excited to be attending KU and continue my education and hopefully my research too. I would love to do the master’s thesis route because it provides valuable experience and since I enjoyed it so much in undergrad. I am thankful for my faculty mentors and the honors college who have helped me so much throughout this process and I am sad to be leaving Arkansas, but very excited for my next chapter!