Zoe Lawless, Excited to Finish my Research Next Semester.

Author: Zoe Lawless | Major: Communication Sciences and Disorders | Semester: Fall 2023

My name is Zoe Lawless and I am a senior Honors Communication Sciences and Disorders major with a minor in Human Development and Family Sciences. My honors thesis is researching the difference between infants and toddlers and their engagement styles while being read a picture book. My mentor is Dr. Laura Herold who works in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences. I am in my first semester of direct data collection, but I am in my fourth semester of working on this thesis topic. Next semester I will be finishing up my data collection and graduating in May.

The data collection for my thesis is being completed at the Jean Tyson Child Development Center, the preschool on the University of Arkansas campus. I go to Jean Tyson every week for eight weeks to observe reading groups of infants and young toddlers being read to by their teachers. I take time sampling observation notes to determine the kind of engagement that each age group shows. This research will have an impact and add to the ever growing knowledge of early childhood education and language acquisition. The data gathered from this study could help change early childhood curriculum to best fit the needs of infants and toddlers and their engagement.

I chose my research topic and found my mentor, Dr. Laura Herold, while taking the class Honors Introduction to Research (CDIS 2903H) my second semester of sophomore year. This is a class offered to Communication Sciences and Disorder students that helps students prepare to complete their thesis. The class was taught by Dr. Rachel Glade. I would recommend this class or a similarly structured class to anyone. I was allowed to brainstorm and find a topic that truly interested me. Dr. Glade also helped us get in touch with potential mentors and start a first draft of our thesis. I contacted Dr. Herold because I had taken a class with her previously and knew that she had experience completing research with young children which I was interested in. I have loved getting to work with Dr. Herold. She helped me get in touch with the Director of Jean Tyson and has helped me through every step of the honors thesis process.

I have learned so much about the research process and myself over the past semester. In the beginning of the semester there was a little setback that I had to go back and fix. I had to resubmit my Institutional Review Board protocol because a couple of things had changed at Jean Tyson and I needed to add it into the protocol. I was so excited to get into the semester and immediately start my data collection, but I quickly learned that was not going to be the case because I had to resubmit. This taught me that completing research requires patience. I learned to be patient while waiting for approval of my amendment and instead worked on different aspects of my thesis.

Next semester I will be presenting my work at the virtual Arkansas Speech-Language and Hearing Association Conference. I am so excited and grateful for the opportunity to present the thesis I have been working on for so many semesters. After I present at the conference I will finish writing the final draft of my thesis and present it to my mentor and community member. I have loved being a member of the honors college for the past few years while attending the University of Arkansas. It has given me a sense of community and support that I never imagined was possible.