Communication Sciences

Speech-Language-Hearing: Alumni Website

What’s New?

Featured Alumna:
Maureen A. Lefton-Greif

The Temple University General Alumni Association is pleased to present Dr. Maureen A. Lefton-Greif with the College of Health Professions Certificate of Honor for distinguished achievement in the field of speech-language pathology.

Dr. Lefton-Greif holds simultaneous appointments in the field of speech and language pathology: she is assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Children Center and consultant to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the Milton J. Dance, Jr., Head and Neck Rehabilitation Center of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

 
She received her bachelor’s degree cum laude from Brooklyn College and a master’s degree from Case Western Reserve. In 1988, she earned her PhD from Temple University Department of Communication Sciences.
  

As a speech language pathologist at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, Dr. Lefton-Greif provides evaluation and management for pediatric clients with feeding and swallowing disorders. She participates on multidisciplinary teams and provides ongoing consultation services with the divisions of pediatric pulmonary medicine, pediatric GI/nutrition, pediatric radiology, pediatric otolaryngology, and the ataxia telangiectasia clinic.

Recently, she has expanded the scope of her services to include in-patient feeding and swallowing consultation to the NICU at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.
Recognized as an expert in her field, Dr. Lefton-Greif has published numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles, won important grants for her research, and contributed by invitation to many professional journals

Featured Alumna:
Dr. Nan Bernstein Ratner 

In Temple University’s Gallery of Success, a portrait of Dr. Nan Bernstein Ratner hangs proudly on the wall. The Gallery was created by Career Development Services to honor distinguished and accomplished Temple alumni from a wide range of professions. These honorees inspire undergraduates with their contributions to the community. Dr. Bernstein Ratner represents the College of Health Professions as the first alumni honoree from the Speech Language and Hearing department.

   Dr. Bernstein Ratner has made noteworthy contributions in the field of speech-language pathology. As Chairman of the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park, she supervises the education of future speech-language pathologists. Students interact with her directly while taking her courses in psycholinguistics and fluency. While a student herself at Temple University, she developed an interest in stuttering and its relationship to child language disorders. Further research in this area led to a thesis on childhood dysfluency. In 1981, she published her first article in the Journal of Fluency Disorders. At Boston University, she shifted her focus of study to the role of parental input in language acquisition and obtained an Ed.D. in psycholinguistics.

The University of Maryland continues to support her research in fluency and child language development. Her website contains a listing of publications that she has contributed to, including numerous textbooks and journal articles. Having a diverse background in linguistics, education, and communication sciences equips Dr. Bernstein Ratner to uniquely serve her students and fellow professionals.

   Visitors to Temple Main Campus are welcome to visit the Gallery of Success, located on the second floor of Mitten Hall outside the Career Development Services office.
Website: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/hesp/facultyStaff/ratnern.htm

Emily Schiff-Glenn was awarded the 2006 DiLeonardo Scholarship. The scholarship is given by the DiLeonardo family in honor of their mother, Ms. Addella DiLeonardo, who received superlative speech therapy services after her stroke

Dr. Brian Goldstein, acting chair of the Communication Sciences department, was chosen along with four other Temple professors to receive the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation award for outstanding faculty members in 2005. Dr. Goldstein is honored for his ability to teach students with enthusiasm and to share not only the content of course material but also the values and principles behind the facts. “The students see that people in their own community need our services and that they are obligated not only to take from Temple, but also to give back,” Goldstein said. In addition to teaching, he advises graduate students, edits and consults on peer-reviewed journals, and presents his research at conferences.

Dr. Nadine Martin just received a grant for $2,916,010 to study lexical retrieval, short term memory, and learning.  Award dates: 12/1/05 to 11/30/10

Associated subcontractors: 
(1)   Murray Grossman, M.D. and H. Branch Coslett, M.D.Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
(2)   Ruth Fink, M.A.  Moss Rehabiliation Research Insitutute
(3)   Prahlad Gupta, Ph.D. University of Iowa.

This project is a continuation of a grant from the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD).  The research is concerned with  the cognitive organization of word processing, verbal short-term memory (STM) and word learning.  These three capacities are fundamental to learning, and their integrity has implications for rehabilitation of neurologically-based language deficits. The broad approach of this work is to identify effects of semantic and phonological impairment on language, STM and learning abilities of individuals with aphasia. In this project period, we will extend this investigation to individuals with semantic dementia  and focus especially on the detrimental effects of semantic impairment on learning and response to treatment in these two populations.  Semantic impairments are present in both semantic dementia and aphasia but are manifested differently in the two conditions. These differences are as yet not fully understood but are broadly characterized as semantic access vs. semantic knowledge impairments.