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Illustration of a person speaking to a woman taking a hearing test.

Round Rock's Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic offers therapy, training, and research

December 18, 2024
Matt Joyce

At the Speech Language-Hearing-Clinic on the Round Rock Campus, TXST students practice a wide range of clinical activities. On any given day, you could find them conducting hearing tests for babies, working with teens on stuttering therapy, or retraining stroke patients to swallow and communicate. 

For graduate students in TXST’s communication disorders master’s degree program, the clinic provides the hands-on training that’s required to become a speech-language pathologist. For the community, the clinic offers critical therapy priced on a sliding scale based on what they can afford. 

The clinic fulfills multiple missions in its 21-room, state-of-the-art facility at Willow Hall. Along with the educational and therapeutic elements, it also provides faculty members with inspiration for research projects and access to research participants. 

"Our faculty research has always been translational, because ultimately the point of research is to improve clinical services. 

I think that’s where we really excel. Because our students are involved in hands-on research, they’re trained to be evidence-based practitioners and clinical scientists."

Dr. Farzan Irani
Communications Disorders Department chair
Dr. Empress Zelder.
Dr. Empress Zelder

In 2018, the Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic moved to the Round Rock Campus from San Marcos, where the late Dr. Empress Zelder originally founded the clinic in 1948. As chair of the Department of Special Education, Zelder’s scholarship made her a national leader in the study and treatment of communication disorders, particularly dyslexia, and child psychology. 

Zelder was only the second woman faculty member at TXST to earn a doctorate, and she was among the first researchers at TXST to land federal grants. She authored widely used textbooks, and in 1958, she was invited to appear on NBC’s “Today” show to talk about her work. 

“Not a lot of people have that type of reach,” Irani said. “To produce the body of work that she did, and to have that level of reach, it’s a sign of excellence.” 

Momentum in Round Rock

TXST opened its first building on the Round Rock Campus in 2005. The university aims to make Round Rock a 10,000-student campus by 2030.

A student gives a hearing test to a colleague in the Hearing Lab at Willow Hall.
A student sitting for a hearing test at Willow Hall in Round Rock.
  1. 24% enrollment growth in fall 2024.
  2. The campus’s first four-year class started in 2024, made of students who will be able to complete their degrees exclusively in Round Rock.
  3. 10 new degree programs were introduced in 2024, bringing the total to 26.
  4. Groundbreaking for the new Esperanza Hall was held in December 2024.

The Department of Communication Disorders carries on Zelder’s legacy in both faculty research and preparing students for clinical work. For example, Irani runs the clinic’s Comprehensive Stuttering Therapy Program and conducts research on treatment outcomes for people who stutter. 

Irani guides graduate students as they work with clients who stutter, and he incorporates research projects along the way. He’s published papers on the efficacy of telehealth in stuttering treatment, and he’s currently testing the efficacy of virtual reality therapy in which clients work through scenarios using VR headsets.

“The clinic generates a pool of participants,” he said. “I reach out to people who have been clients in the past and ask them if they’re willing to participate in my research.” 

Research within communications disorders spans a wide array of speech-language pathology. Dr. Maria Resendiz, an associate professor and co-director of the Bilingual Language Acquisition Brains Lab, is working with a team of faculty partners and students to develop an app-based tool that facilitates communication and understanding between autistic and neurotypical people. 

The team, which includes an individual with autism who provides perspective on what’s meaningful to autistic people, won a National Science Foundation I-Corps grant to develop the app. 

Students practice ear examinations at the Texas State Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic in Round Rock.
Texas State Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic, Round Rock.

Dr. Pradeep Ramanathan, an associate professor in the department, researches the treatment of aphasia, or the loss of understanding and language caused by brain injury. He’s published papers demonstrating the efficacy of therapy for patients more than one year after a brain injury, and he’s also studying whether the brain’s right hemisphere can be trained to take over some of the language function from the left hemisphere to help individuals with brain injury recover their abilities. 

“The clinic gives our academic and clinical faculty an opportunity to design research programs,” Irani said. “And we have clients across the lifespan, from young children with speech and language delays to older adults with Parkinson’s disease. Not only do we have the privilege of providing care, but as faculty, when we want to conduct research in an area, we have their trust.”

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Matt Joyce

Matt Joyce is the editor of Hillviews and a writer and editor for TXST's Division of Marketing and Communications.