Mental Health Tips and Resources to Support CSD Students’ Well-Being

In my second year of graduate school studying speech-language pathology, I was feeling tired, anxious, and spread thin by my academic, clinical, and extracurricular commitments. I was not spending enough time on myself to support my mental health, and my daily life was impacted by negative and anxious thoughts. I realized that I needed to make a change. So, I started by setting better boundaries…

Read More

AAC: A Key That Can Unlock the Human Right to Communicate

For most people, the ability to express themselves through speech comes naturally and with little effort. For others, a disorder such as autism, or an illness such as a stroke or neurogenic disease, has left them isolated and unable to communicate with others. Fortunately, those people can use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to communicate and interact with others. AAC consists of a range of…

Read More

Curious About Academic Research? This Might SPARC Your Interest!

The Students Preparing for Academic-Research Careers (SPARC) Award aims to cultivate student interest in pursuing a research doctorate (PhD) in communication sciences and disorders (CSD) and a career as a faculty-researcher in CSD. ASHA grants 12 awards of $1,000 each, including up to two awards dedicated to students attending master’s and baccalaureate universities. In this Q&A, recent SPARC award recipients Haley Hayashi, a speech-language pathology graduate student…

Read More

Don’t Wait Until Grad School! Five Reasons to Attend a State Association Convention as an Undergrad

In February, I attended the 2023 Speech and Hearing Association of Alabama (SHAA) Convention—my first time attending a convention in the fields of speech-language pathology and audiology. As an undergraduate student surrounded by professionals and graduate students, I expected to feel a bit out of place. My experience attending SHAA, however, showed me how the undergraduate years are actually the perfect time in one’s student…

Read More