Hannah Spear Headshot

Author: Hannah Spear | Major: Communication Sciences and Disorders | Semester: Fall 2024

Hello! My name is Hannah Spear, and I am a part of the College of Education and Health Professions majoring in Communication Sciences and Disorders. I plan on attending graduate school post undergrad to get a Master of Science in Speech Language Pathology. I have collaborated with Dr. Lisa Bowers who is in the department of Occupational Therapy and is an Associate Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders. My semester of research is Fall 2024 and this semester we were able to dive in and perform hands on research. I also presented my honors research at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association National Conference in December 2024 which is the governing council for all audiologist and speech language pathologist. This conference was an amazing learning experience, and I was able to have the opportunity to learn from speech-language pathologist who have been practicing for many years.

My research is focused on language sample analysis in pre-school aged children who are at risk for speech sound disorders. Language sample analysis (LSA) is an assessment tool that speech language pathologist (SLP) can use to assess children in a real world, natural setting for the child. The problem with LSA’s is that they are time consuming and take training to understand how to use the software properly. Many SLP’s decide to opt out of using LSA’s due to these factors but they have been proven to give a more accurate diagnosis for children with communication disorders. Our goal this semester was to try using a new, free software called Computerized Language Analysis (CLAN) and examine if it is more user friendly. Overall, we determined that for SLP’s to be more willing to use LSA’s there would need to be a speech to text software that would take the video with the child and automatically transcribe it on the CLAN software.

During my spring of my sophomore year, I was enrolled in a Communication Sciences and Disorders honors research class with Dr. Rachel Glade. Throughout this course she would bring in different faculty members that were conducting research and they would come to our class and explain what an honors project with them would look like. Dr. Bowers came to our class and introduced her research with early intervention, and it sparked my interest, and I had the opportunity to connect with her and start working together. Throughout the past two years working on my honors research project, I have learned a lot about research and myself. For example, I learned that research does not always go the way you planned it. It is okay if you do not get the results you were hoping for because that is the whole point of research and understanding what works or does not work in the field. This pushed me personally because I am a very black and white person and many times throughout my research, I was required to look at it from very different aspects and it was not just black and white. Throughout our research we were challenged when the software we were using, CLAN, did not work the way we originally thought it was going to. Before using CLAN, my mentor and I were under the impression it had the speech to text software, and we would not have to transcribe like similar software’s. We ran into challenges when we realized that CLAN is very similar to other analysis software’s but is different in the fact it is free. This allowed us to grow and really think about what could benefit SLP’s in the field and try to create a list of attributes new software should have to make LSA’s time efficient. My mentor played a major role in my research and was helpful throughout each step of the process. I was also lucky enough to work with a group, so I had three peers that were also a part of my honors project. Together we were able to build teamwork and work together to take our research and change routes when we ran into challenges.

This month my three groupmates, mentor, and I traveled to Seattle, Washington to present our research at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association National Conference. We were very grateful to be chosen to present at this conference and are benefited greatly from this learning experience. In addition to presenting, we had the opportunity to join unique educational settings and attend various fairs, including the graduate school fair and exhibition halls. We put a poster together after gathering the remainder of our data and getting our results together that we were able to present in front of a numerous amount of practicing speech-language pathologists. This conference grew my knowledge on what my future career as a speech-language pathologist might look like. Having the opportunity to have meaningful conversations with trained professionals in my field was a once in a lifetime opportunity as an undergrad. I learned what has worked and not worked for other speech-language pathologist, and I will carry everything I learned with me to graduate school and beyond.

Overall, I am thankful for all the honors college advice, support, and encouragement throughout completing my honors thesis. I am able to gain unique experiences while conducting research that I will use throughout the rest of my career. I am thankful for my honors mentor, groupmates, and the University of Arkansas for making this possible.