Feature Matching for People with Aphasia
Our Team
Michelle Kryc, MA CCC-SLP
Michelle Kryc is a Speech-Language Pathologist currently working at an outpatient Neuro Rehabilitation clinic in Aurora, Colorado. She is a native Ohioan and graduated with her Bachelor's of Arts in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Ohio State University in 2018. Michelle then went on to earn her Master's of Arts in Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Cincinnati in 2020. Michelle relocated to Denver, Colorado that same year. Michelle has a passion working with individuals with neurologic communication disorders, especially Traumatic Brain Injury and Stroke, and augmentative and alternative communication.
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In 2019, Michelle was awarded the SPARC (Students Preparing for Academic Research Careers) award. With this award, Michelle was able to travel to Orlando, FL for the ASHA 2019 convention and begin her initial work on the Feature Matching tool for People with Aphasia. Michelle started this project with her mentor, Dr. Aimee Dietz, and has continued to work on this project after graduation. Michelle's research interests are augmentative and alternative communication assessment and treatment for people with aphasia.
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Aimee Dietz, PhD, CCC-SLP
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Aimee Dietz, Ph.D. serves as the chair of the Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders at Georgia State University. By training, she is a speech-language pathologist (SLP) who has dedicated her career to improving outcomes for people with aphasia—first as a clinician, then as a clinical researcher. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Florida State University. During her clinical work, Dietz quickly learned that rehabilitation for people with aphasia is grossly limiting.
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She reports that, “During inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation we work hard to restore lost language functions and when the person “plateaus” in their recovery, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is provided to help them communicate—leaving them to feel as if therapists have given up on them and that recovery has ended.”
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For these reasons, she completed her Ph.D. under the direction of Drs. David Beukelman and Karen Hux at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, with a focus on understanding the unique considerations involved in the development of AAC interface designs for people with aphasia.
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During her time at the University of Cincinnati (2008-2021), Dietz forged a line of research examining the role of AAC as a language recovery tool for people with chronic aphasia, using neuroimaging technologies to identify neurobiomarkers for AAC-induced language recovery. This work continues at Georgia State, with an added emphasis of understanding how AAC can be successfully administered to people with aphasia via teletherapy—and during the subacute stages of post-stroke recovery.
Brylie Rampe, BA
Brylie is currently an undergraduate senior in Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Cincinnati, graduating May 2020. She has an interest in neurogenic communication disorders and is completing her capstone project in the Language Recovery and Communication Technology Lab under Dr. Aimee Dietz and graduate mentor Michelle Kryc. Brylie will be attending the University of Cincinnati to obtain her Master of Arts in Speech-Language Pathology.
Sophie Keith, BS
Sophie Keith is the tech wizard behind this project. Sophie was able to create our feature matching chart using excel with her background in computer science engineering. Sophie is currently a Software Engineer at IBM.She completed her BS in Computer Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University in Spring 2019. Currently, she works in the Final System Testing of IBMi department, as a member of the Solutions Team in Rochester, Minnesota. Sophie has great hopes to encourage a new generation of women in tech, as she serves as an industry mentor for Technovation, an organization where she teaches and help a group of 5th and 8th grade young women design and build a phone app for a state-wide competition. Among her co-workers, she is a member of Volunteers in Engineering where she helps as an in-class mentor for AP Computer Science students as well as designs a year end Robot competition. Sophie hopes to always continue to be a student in software and encourage others to become passionate about technology.
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Megan Leick, BA
Megan is a second-year MS-SLP student at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point where she completed her BS in communication sciences and disorders in 2020. Her passion for the use of alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) to support communication fuels her work as a graduate assistant in the AAC lab of the Speech Language and Hearing Clinic of Stevens Point. In this position, she provides guidance to peers on AAC and familiarizes herself with its use, becoming recently interested in the use of apps to support people with aphasia. In her professional future, she hopes to integrate the use of AAC into patient-centered care of adults and children with complex communication needs and to be an advocate for folks who use AAC.
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