Interview with a Researcher – Geralyn Schulz, PhD, CCC-SLP

Please give a brief background:  (Employment, interests of study, special honors, certifications etc.)

The George Washington University, efficacy of various treatments in Parkinson’s disease, speech neuromotor control.

If you could change one thing about having to do research, what would it be?

Length of time to publication!😩

What’s one thing you think clinicians should be excited about in our field regarding research?

They can pair with a researcher to contribute to the professional knowledge base to improve that knowledge base more easily than they may think.

What’s one thing you think researchers should be excited about in our field regarding clinical practice?

The continued push for evidenced based in clinical practice. 

I feel the Results section of studies can be the most misunderstood or difficult to navigate through, what tidbits or tips/tricks can you share to help clinicians process these sections?

Read through main points; skip the statistical stuff knowing that the research would never have gotten published if this part didn’t pass muster.

Could you pick one technical-jargon (e.g. “linear regression” “ANOVA” “two-tailed test” etc.)  to explain in a relatable and easily understandable way (real-life, simple examples get bonus points😉)?

ANOVA = a statistical test that compares groups to see if they are the same relative to the thing you want to measure. For example: you want to know if there is a difference in the ability of anomic aphasics to name objects using different types of priming (phonemic vs semantic priming).

So you identify 2 settings that have anomic patients that are very very similar on a number of background variables (e.g., age, years post stroke onset, amount of prior therapy, lesion size, etc) and you convince SLP’s in medical setting A to use only phonemic priming for their anomic patients and SLP’s in medical setting B to use only semantic priming for their anomic patients for 6 months. You collect the number of objects named correctly before any of these patients receive therapy using the same test in Setting A and Setting B.

After 6 months of therapy (same number of hours/patient/setting) you use that same naming test to collect the number of objects named correctly after these patients receive therapy using the same test in Setting A and Setting B. You run the ANOVA test, which compares (the variability in) the number of objects named post therapy by the patients that received phonemic priming (Setting A) vs semantic priming (Setting B).

The assumption of the ANOVA test is that there is NO difference between the 2 groups in (the variability of) the number of objects named after receiving the 2 different priming therapies. If that assumption is incorrect, then there is a difference between the 2 groups, which means one of those types of priming during therapy resulted in better ability to name objects following therapy. Unfortunately, the  ANOVA test doesn’t by itself tell you which group was better, you have to run another (“post-hoc”) test to determine that answer.

Results of ANOVA tell you that there is a difference in naming ability between the 2 groups (one that received only phonemic priming vs the one that received only semantic priming). It appears that anomic patients in Setting A (Phonemic priming only) have made greater gains in naming post 6 months of phonemic priming therapy than anomic patients in Setting B (Semantic priming only). A “post-hoc” test confirms this. Therefore, you conclude that Phonemic priming therapy for 6 months results in a better ability to name objects than Semantic priming therapy in anomic patients.

What’s the one thing you think is important for practicing clinicians to know/understand when reading research?

Those same steps are used in completing research as in practicing behavioral research:

What’s one thing you think is important for researchers to know/understand about clinical practice?

Clinicians want to provide the most efficacious treatment to their clients.👍

What is something you believe researchers could do better to #bridgethegap?

Listen to the needs of clinicians/patients. Communicate your research in various venues including clinical ones.👍👍

What is something you believe clinicians could do better to #bridgethegap?

Communicate your treatment needs to researchers/funding sources. Listen to and seek out researchers; ask them to explain if necessary.🤓

Can you provide your contact email if clinicians want to reach out? (Honors system for everyone to be respectful of your time)

schulz@gwu.edu

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Thank you to Dr. Shculz for sharing and her continued work in the field!❤️