By: Patti L. Solomon-Rice, PhD, CCC-SLP, TSHF Research Awards Committee Chair

The Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation (TSHF) is pleased to recognize our 2025 grant recipients and past recipients of the TSHF Research Awards Program. Although the amount of each award is not large, the award can be sufficient to explore the feasibility of a novel idea, support preliminary research needed to apply for a larger nationally funded research project, or perhaps extend the findings of a currently funded research project. Our research program supports the TSHF mission to improve the lives of people with communication disorders by promoting research relevant to communication disorders and supporting Texas-based researchers across a variety of settings.

This year, we awarded grants for five research projects. The grant recipients were announced at the 2025 Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Association (TSHA) Convention in San Antonio during the TSHF Annual Breakfast. The research projects represented a wide range of topics, and grants totaled $6,730. Our 2025 Research Award recipients are as follows.




The Tina E. Bangs Research Endowment was presented to faculty member Dr. Hyunsoo Yoo, Assistant Professor at Baylor University, to support the project Story Retelling Therapy.

The Elisabeth Wiig Doctoral Student Research Award was presented to two doctoral students. Our first recipient was Janelle Beth Flores from the University of Houston for the project Navigating Referrals: Bilingual Educator’s Decisions and SLPs’ Clinical Judgment.

Our second recipient of the Elisabeth Wiig Doctoral Student Research Award was Saranya Mundayoor from the University of Texas at Dallas in support of the project Personalizing and Optimizing Hearing Aid Prescriptions for Children and Adolescents Using Artificial Intelligence.

The Lear Ashmore Research Endowment was presented to clinical professional Barbara Ebersole from the University of Texas at MD Anderson for the project Decisional Regret in Survivors of Advanced Laryngeal/Hypopharyngeal Cancers and the Role of Coping Self-Efficacy.

The Presidents’ Research Endowment was awarded to doctoral student Abigail Dueppen from the University of Houston to support the project A Pre- and Postoperative Protocol for Patients with Benign Vocal Fold Lesions: A Mixed Methods Approach.

We also continue to hear from past research award recipients that your support does make an impact. For example, four 2024 research award recipients presented their projects at conventions or conferences, and one 2024 award recipients’ project has been accepted for publication. Our 2024 award recipient presentations and publications are as follows:

Dr. Donguk Lee, recipient of the 2024 Tina E. Bangs Research Endowment for the project entitled Noise Tolerance and Preferred Listening Level Under Different Noise Conditions, presented a poster about the project at the March 26-29, 2025, American Academy of Audiology (AAA) annual convention in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Dr. Gary Rabinaugh, recipient of the 2024 Lear Ashmore Research Endowment for the project entitled Multimodal Communication in Progressive Aphasia: A Mixed Methods Experience Sampling Study, presented a poster about the project at the May 27-May 31, 2025, Clinical Aphasia Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Prabuddah Bhatarai, recipient of the 2024 Elisabeth Wiig Doctoral Student Research Fund for the project entitled Emotional Responses to Speech and Environmental Sounds by Cochlear Implant Users, presented a poster about the project at the March 26-29, 2025, American Academy of Audiology (AAA) annual convention in New Orleans.

Kathleen Denicola-Prechtl, recipient of the 2024 Sandi Friel-Patti Research in Language International Travel Fund for the project entitled Identifying Barriers to Hispanic Children’s Access to Early Language Intervention, presented a poster about the project on July 9, 2024, at the International Congress of Infant Studies Biennial Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. In addition, a manuscript about the research project has been accepted for publication in the journal Infants and Young Children. Kathleen's work investigated the patterns of clinical follow-up exhibited by Spanish-speaking families in the U.S. whose children’s performance on the communication portion of a common developmental screener (ASQ-3 Spanish) was of concern as well as identified what factors influenced these patterns. Although the majority of families pursued the recommended evaluation, about 1 in 3 parents declined. Parents of younger children were more likely to pursue an evaluation than those of older children. 

Many congratulations to our 2025 TSHF Research Award recipients and our 2024 recipients who have recently presented and who will be publishing their research! Also, special thanks to our Research Awards Committee members Dr. Lynn Maher, professor emeritus from the University of Houston, who is past chair of the Research Awards Committee; Dr. Boji Pak Wing Lam, from the University of North Texas; and Dr. Hoyoung Yi, from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.

On an administrative note, the TSHF Research Committee, with approval from the TSHF Board of Directors, has made a program adjustment based on the recognition that the timing of the TSHF Awards program doesn’t always fit well with typical research cycles and travel awards. As a result, beginning this year in 2025, we have extended the time to complete research projects and the time to present at international venues from 2/28/20XX to 12/31/20XX (XX is the year of the receipt of the award).

As always, many thanks to all of you who, through your generous donations, make support of these and many more innovative and important research projects possible. Finally, thank you once again to our research award recipients for their continued effort and commitment toward improving the lives of those with communication challenges.