Rachael Frush Holt

Assistant Professor (Hearing Sciences)

Phone: 812 855 6659
Email: raholtindiana.edu

Lab Website

Education

BS 1996 Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Minnesota
MA 1999 Communication Disorders (Audiology), University of Minnesota
PhD 2003 Communication Disorders (Audiology), University of Minnesota

Research Interests

The research in this laboratory focuses on the development of perception, discrimination, and understanding of speech both in typically developing young children and those who use hearing aids and/or cochlear implants. As is typical in our field, our work has both basic and applied aspects to it. Current projects of a more basic research nature include using a developmentally appropriate discrimination procedure for investigating the internal representation of speech in young children; and examining the development of speech sound discrimination in typically developing children and those who use hearing aids and/or cochlear implants. Our more applied research involves the development of an audiovisual speech recognition test for children with sensory aids, the Audiovisual-Lexical Neighborhood Sentence Test (AV-LNST); and the further development of a procedure to assess speech sound discrimination in toddlers.

Selected Publications

Holt, R. F., & Svirsky, M. A. (2008). An exploratory look at pediatric cochlear implantation:  Is earliest always best? Ear and Hearing, 29, 492-511.

Holt, R. F., Kirk, K. I., & Hay-McCutcheon, M. (2011). Assessing multimodal spoken word-in-sentence recognition in children with normal hearing and children with cochlear implants. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 54, 632-657.

Holt, R. F. (in press). Enhancing speech discrimination through stimulus repetition. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.