On September 20, 2012, Megan Hodge will receive recognition for her many achievements with an award from the University of Alberta Alumni Association. In particular, the Alumni Honour Award will celebrate the important contributions she has made to treatment of children with severe speech sound disorders-often referred to as childhood apraxia of speech.
Dr. Hodge, a 1973 BSc(Speech) graduate of the University of Alberta, is also a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Arizona, where she earned her master's degree in speech and hearing sciences. Throughout her career, she has been, in her own words, "trying to understand why some children have severe difficulty learning to speak." This has led her to develop reliable, valid computer-mediated measures of young children's speech intelligibility-these are now used around the world-and on "interventions to help affected children become as intelligible as possible, as soon as possible."
Highly respected internationally for her expertise in these areas, in 2005 she was the recipient of the Eve Kassier Award, given by the Canadian Association of Speech Pathologists and Audiologists for outstanding professional achievement. Over her career, she has also received multiple awards that recognize her excellence as a teacher and mentor. Commensurate with her passion for clinical education and her commitment to rigorous, yet relevant, research, Dr. Hodge is dedicated to knowledge translation. She is a sought-after speaker, in demand for everything from leading workshops for clinicians to delivering keynote addresses at international conferences.
Her Alumni Association award comes at the end of what has been a busy summer for Dr. Hodge, who retired after a 20-year career at the University of Alberta as a professor in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine's Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology.
On June 28, her retirement and transition to the status of professor emerita was marked by a large gathering of colleagues from the university and clinical communities. Among those who spoke were members of families that had benefited from her work assisting children to gain intelligible speech-one family coming all the way from Victoria to be present.
At the beginning of the summer there was testimony of another sort highlighting the difference that her work has made in the lives of families with children who had experienced severe speech sound disorders. This endorsement came in the form of a fundraising walk: the second annual Matthew's Walk, held on May 5 to support implementation of the Let's Start Talking program in collaboration with Edmonton community health speech-language pathologists (Alberta Health Services). Based on Hodge's work, Let's Start Talking is a creative and innovative approach to applying theoretical principles of motor speech learning to a structured learning curriculum for use with young children whose speech is severely delayed and a motor speech problem is suspected.
The walk was organized by parents whose children have been helped by the program and want to ensure that children throughout Alberta benefit from it. The funds raised go to the University to support specialized training aimed at enabling speech-language pathologists to provide Let's Start Talking to children and their parents.
On June 15 at a reception to thank the parents involved in implementing the walk, Dr. Hodge praised them for having taken the University of Alberta's core value of community engagement and "turned [it] around 180 degrees by actively pursuing and supporting university engagement."
She also spoke to the parents about her plans for the future. Speaking about her then imminent retirement, she said, "I am referring to it as my 'advancement,' as it will open up more opportunities to move forward with my collaboration with Alberta Health Services in my new role as professor emerita."
That collaboration will not only include further workshops and other activities in support of the Let's Start Talking program, but will encompass, as well, similar activities related to two ancillary programs-Let's Play with Words, which is designed for children younger than those targeted by Let's Start Talking, and Let's Talk Clearly, which is being developed for children of school age who still have significant intelligibility concerns.
Dr. Hodge will receive her Alumni Honour Award as part of the Alumni Recognition Awards ceremonies being held on September 20 at the Winspear Centre as part of Alumni Weekend 2012. For more information or to obtain tickets contact the U of A Alumni Office or visit www.alumni.ualberta.ca