Melinda L. Richards

mrichards@mtsu.edu

Russell Church

Speech & Theatre

Discipline specific equipment

BDA 213 and 216

New Technology

N/A

Communication, whether normal or disordered, requires highly visual learning material and manipulatives. Student use of technology is also an integral part of the development of presentation skills, the ability to conduct analysis of language and speech productions, and in-depth understanding of the structures of the head and neck as they pertain to speech, language, and hearing. Students in Communication Disorders courses will receive instruction using the equipment to analyze and learn diagnostic and therapeutic applications, and to identify and locate the internal structures of the human anatomy, as well as describe the function of the structures for speech comprehension and/or production. A wearable digital recorder with harness and microphone would enable faculty and students to record speech and language samples in clinic for off-line analysis. The portable nature of this technology would lend itself to recordings of infants and preschoolers. Analysis would be performed on the Computerized Speech Lab (CSL) already in place. Currently there is great interest in the development of speech sounds in infants who are typically developing and in children with developmental delays due to hearing and/or language disorders. The MTSU Speech & Hearing Clinic offers faculty and students the opportunity to record and study language and speech samples of its clients, and to participate in longitudinal clinical research. Specific courses include CDIS 3150 Phonetics, CDIS 3050 Introduction to Communication Disorders, CDIS 3250 Language Development, CDIS 3400 Anatomy and Physiology of the Speech Mechanism. Student class size in each of these courses averages 25-30 each semester, and some students will be enrolled in more than one of the classes listed in any given semester.