Research & Centers

Bilingual Extension Institute

Edward D. Mysak Speech, Language & Hearing Center

Edward D. Mysak Speech and Hearing Center

The Edward D. Mysak Speech and Hearing Center is an integral part of the graduate training program in speech and language pathology at Teachers College.  The Center offers a wide range of diagnostic and therapeutic services to individuals of all ages with communication disorders.

Services are provided by program faculty and supervisory staff who hold national and state certification in their respective areas.  Qualified graduate students provide or assist in the provision of these services under the direct supervision of the faculty and staff.

The program in speech and language pathology at Teachers College is accredited by the Council on Academic Accreditation of the American Speech Language and Hearing Association.  Academic concentrations leading to certifications include the Teacher of Students with Speech and Language Disabilities (TSSLD) and the Bilingual Extension to the TSSLD, both of which are registered with the New York State Education Department. 

Language and Cognition Lab

Neurocognition of Language Lab

At the Neurocognition of Language Lab, we conduct experiments examining the neural underpinnings of aspects of language and cognitive processing, in both normal and damaged adult brains, utilizing combinations of behavioral and electrophysiological techniques.

Speech Production & Perception Lab

Research

Research in the Speech Production and Perception Laboratory examines speech performance in normal and disordered individuals, with special emphasis on the bilingual population. Under the direction of Erika Levy, Ph.D., Assistant Professor and trilingual speech-language pathologist, this lab is affiliated with the Speech & Language Pathology program in Teachers College's Department of Biobehavioral Sciences. As many clients in our communities are bilingual, speech-language pathologists must differentiate between normal and disordered speech performance in these individuals.

Goals

A goal of our research is to better understand patterns of speech production and perception by normal second-language learners. We aim to recreate natural speech patterns as much as possible within the laboratory setting in order to better understand real-world speech production and perception and their disorders. A theme of this research has been the investigation of utterances in continuous speech, in which neighboring vowels and consonants affect each other's pronunciation, as opposed to isolated speech utterances. Our work informs educational and therapeutic approaches to speech and language learning and disorders in multilingual populations.

Current Projects

1. Examination of speech and language performance by a trilingual individual with aphasia (a language disorder resulting from a stroke)
   1. Changes in accentedness following a stroke: We are analyzing changes that took place in his pronunciation of Hebrew (his first language), French and English following the stroke. He reports he became more accented in both of his non-native languages. He has provided us with pre-stroke recordings and we have made post-stroke recordings. By comparing his speech before and after the stroke by means of listener ratings and acoustical analysis, we can examine the changes that took place.
   2. Teletherapy in one language: We performed language therapy in English via internet teleconferencing. We are examining whether his language performance improved in English and whether any improvement translated into his Hebrew or French.
2. Speech-language pathology students with accents: We are performing a survey on university policies and practices regarding speech-language pathology students with accents in an effort to determine research directions needed to address issues surrounding the shortage of bilingual speech-language pathologists.
3. Americans' production of French vowels: We are analyzing production of French vowels by adult American English speakers who learned French after puberty. Half of the speakers have had only formal French instruction in school, whereas the other half have had extensive immersion experience. Using goodness ratings and acoustical analysis, we are analyzing the effects of language experience on production skills in two consonantal contexts and comparing these with the same speakers' perceptual performance.

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