The clinic experienced a glitch in the new building this year. We learned that the modulators in the video room were installed incorrectly, causing the units to overheat and damage internal components. To add to the problem, the company that installed the equipment filed bankruptcy, therefore, the University had no recourse to seek compensation. Consequently, we had to use a significant portion of the Clinic budget for replacing all ten units at a cost of approximately $800 each. This required a creative “redistribution of funds” as the Department tried to make ends meet.
Over the years, generous gifts from alumni have allowed the Clinic to update technology, equip the sensory room, purchase new tests and therapy materials, and upgrade computers in therapy rooms. Recently, new waiting room furniture was purchased with these funds. The old furniture was purchased approximately twenty years ago, so we certainly got our money’s worth from it. Combined with the Lego table purchased previously, new lamps, and matching woodwork for the magazine rack and bulletin board, the waiting area has a comfortable, professional feel and look to it. Currently on our Clinic “wish list” is a number of test and therapy items for the Materials Center. Thank you for your generosity, both in the past and future!
*Picture with caption that reads Snapshots of the new waiting room furniture, magazine rack, and Lego table.
Audiology practicum will undergo a major alteration for the next academic year. Dr. Candice Osenga will be joining the faculty, replacing Lynn Wilkerson as audiologist. The Department has entered into an affiliation agreement with St. Joseph’s Institute for the Deaf at Carle in Champaign. This external practicum site will provide valuable practicum experience with the hearing impaired for our graduate students. The Clinic is also planning to offer 4 week AR classes for community members beginning Fall 2007.
It is interesting to see how our client base has changed over the years as the profession’s scope of practice has expanded. The diversity of disorders treated at the Clinic ranges from the more traditional, such as articulation, stuttering, language, and voice, to disorders related to language literacy, executive function, nonverbal language disorder, and the autism spectrum (Asperger’s, autism, PDD-NOS). Faculty have also been successful in obtaining grants to expand the augmentative and alternative communication devices available for evaluation and therapy with clients.
This past summer was the third in which the Clinic offered its summer group therapy program. There were groups for clients with disorders of articulation, phonology, pragmatic communication, language processing, pre-school language, and school age language. For supervisors, it was fun, interesting, and, at times, anxiety-producing to see graduate clinicians having to make the transition from providing individual treatment to addressing the challenges of a group. Each clinician’s organization, creative, and behavior management skills were certainly put to the test.
The clinic experienced a glitch in the new building this year. We learned that the modulators in the video room were installed incorrectly, causing the units to overheat and damage internal components. To add to the problem, the company that installed the equipment filed bankruptcy, therefore, the University had no recourse to seek compensation. Consequently, we had to use a significant portion of the Clinic budget for replacing all ten units at a cost of approximately $800 each. This required a creative “redistribution of funds” as the Department tried to make ends meet. 